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CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 



CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 



BY 



ELIZA ALLEN STAEE, 



Author of "Patron Saints," "Pilgrims and Shrines," "Songs of 

a Life Time," "Isabella of Castile," "Christian 

Art in Our O \vn Age. " 




PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 

saint Joseph's cottage no. 299 huron street, 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 

1891. 






Copyright 1891, 
BY ELIZA ALLEN STAKE, 

Chicago. 




PRESS OF 

CHICAGO WOMAN'S NEWS, 
McVicker's Theatre Bldg., 

CHICAGO. 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF THAT 

DHUNTLEgS pHRIg^IAN KNIGHT 

AND 
LEAL CHAMPION OF OUR LADY, 

James McMasteh. 

These pages, written under his chivalrous patronage, 

are dedicated, with a 

Eequiescat in pace 

By the Author. 



saint Joseph's cottage, 
feast of our lady of mount carmel, 

1891. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Christmas. 

II. Our Lady at the Crib. 

III. Epiphany. 

IV. The Early Madonnas. 
V. Raphael's Madonnas. 



ILLUSTRATION. 

(ON COVEE.) 

After Luca della Eobbia. 



CHRISTMAS. 



Merrie Christmas! Christmas with its car- 
ols, its chimes, its evergreen garlands, its laurel 
and holly and its mistletoe bough ! Christmas 
with its Yule-log, its Santa Claus, its charming: 
surprises, its lovely gifts ! Christmas with its 
family gatherings, its tall tree of spruce or pine 
or hemlock for the little folk! Christmas with 
its snow-banks and icicles and glorious sun- 
shine! This is the American Christmas; the 
Christmas which has become universal in our 
land, from Maine to Louisiana, Texas, Cali- 
fornia; from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The 
Christmas of the descendants of those who came 
over in the Mayflower, in the December of 1620, 



Reprinted from The Fkeeman's Joubnal by the courtesy 
of the present Editors, the Messrs. Ford. 



10 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

as well as of those who landed in Jamestown, 
in 1607. In staid villages where, thirty years 
ago, the December Christmas was not thought 
of beside the Thanksgiving Day of November, 
and where, still less, was there ever a garland 
of evergreen woven in its honor, Christmas cards 
are now one of the necessities of the season, 
and " Merrie Christmas ! " flies from neighbor 
to neighbor, as if the heart could never weary 
of the joyous greeting. And yet, is this Ameri- 
can Christmas quite after the ideal which has 
given to the world that Venite Adoremus 
^which thrills us every Christmas morning as if 
we heard it for the first time, calling us to 
iasten with the shepherds to Bethlehem, to the 
Crib ? That ideal Christmas which inspired 
Correggio's Notte, that night of nights, with 
its midnight shadows, its Babe radiating celes- 
tial splendors, its ecstatic Virgin Mother; 
a Venite Adoremus perpetuated to the eye? 
And not only Correggio's ; but, long, long before 
him, those Nativities in the illuminated missals 
and antiphonals of the monastic centres of art 
which gave types to a Niccolo Pisano, a Cima- 
l>ue, a Giotto, an Andrea Pisano, a Luca della 
Hobbia, a Lorenzo di Credi, a Perugino, a 
Baphael ; while the types of these very cloisters 
ran back to mysterious sources hidden for hun- 
dreds of years, but now laid open to view on the 
torchlit w r alls of some catacomb of the Apostolic 



CHRISTMAS. 11 

age, like that of Saint Priscilla or of Saint 
Domitilla. Looking back over the art, still 
more, the Liturgy of these almost nineteen hun- 
dred years, do we not feel that the popular Christ- 
mas of America lacks some essential element 
which gave this festival a hold on the imagina- 
tions and consciences of Christians; and that,, 
while our Christmas is merry and kindly, and 
poetic too, if you will, it is not, in the popular 
mind, a religious festival ? 

The Catholic American of to-day is like & 
voyager among the beautiful coral reefs; he 
must often drop his sounding-line. The tide of 
immigration brings thousands of Catholics to 
our shores; but, either they leave their tradi- 
tions of fasts and feasts behind them, or forget 
them on coming ^mong new scenes ; and there 
is not one festival or solemnity of their relig- 
ion which would not fail of its essential charac- 
teristic as to circumstances, but for that Liturgy, 
which is like the pilot at the helm, not only of 
the Church, but of Christian society. The sor- 
row and the mortification is, that so few Catho- 
lics take the trouble to understand this Liturgy, 
or to enter into its spirit, For most people, it is 
enough that the ceremonies of the Church go- 
on, and that they attend upon those of obliga- 
tion ; but as to any curiosity concerning the 
meaning of these ceremonies, it seems hardly to 
exist. Only when an unusual representation or 



12 CHBISTMAS-TIDE. 

symbol is presented, some memory is revived 
of the beautiful old Catholic countries from 
which they have come, in pursuit of wealth or of 
competency, to find themselves stripped of 
everything pertaining to their glorious old 
Faith but its creed. To-day, every intelligent 
Catholic has a work to do ; which is, to connect 
himself and his family with the traditions of the 
Church, so that her festivals will be kept, not 
according to provincial or even national cus- 
toms, but according to that grand ceremonial 
which has set a crown of beauty on the civiliza- 
tion of the past ages of the Church, and is to do 
so for the future, even in the United States of 
America. " Happy," says M. Eio, in one of 
the chapters of his UArt Chretien, " happy is 
the people whose national and religious tradi- 
tions are identical." Happy indeed; but 
those who are not thus favored have but one 
course to pursue — to engraft on a noble, natural 
stock the still more august traditions of an an- 
cient Faith. 

To learn, then, the true spirit of the Christian 
festivals we must turn to the Liturgy itself ; a Lit- 
urgy which,asDom Gueranger states so concisely, 
is " drawn from three sources, the Old and New 
Testaments, and that new song which the Church 
remembering that to her, also, has been given 
the trumpet and the harp," so devoutly sings 
through her doctors and such inspired poets as 



CHRISTMAS. 13 

Prudentius and Thomas Aquinas. As one sees 
at a glance, this Liturgy, which is like the shell 
to the essential Faith and essential Sacraments 
given by Our Lord Himself through His Apos- 
tles, and which dates its Dominus Vohiscum 
and Orate, fratres, to Pope Clement, martyred 
in the year a. d. 100 ; and has been ever since, 
enriched by new offices for new feasts and new 
saints, is the repository of the Christian tradi- 
tions from the Apostolic times to our own. To 
this we can turn to know what spirit we should 
be of at every ecclesiastical season; and to 
know the Liturgy of the Church, is to know 
what is worth knowing in all the prayer-books 
in the world. It is, in fact, the one prayer-book 
which every educated Catholic should possess ; 
and it is the one which even the unlettered, in 
Catholic countries, know by hearing and seeing. 
It is, then, to this Liturgy that we must look to 
learn the true spirit of Christmas ; and first, we 
will speak of those four weeks of preparation, 
typical of the four thousand years before the 
birth of Our Lord, known as Advent. We find 
that this season of Advent, so early as the 
fifth century, was really a season of penance. 
Special sermons were preached, fasting prac- 
ticed three times a week from Martinmas, No- 
vember 11th, until Christmas. In the twelfth 
century this fast was reduced to an abstinence ; 
and, finally, both fast and abstinence have been 



14 CHRISTMAS -TIDE. 

removed from the weak shoulders of modern 
Christians. But while this lessening of peniten- 
tial practices has been going on in reference to 
the laity, the Church preserves, intact, the 
spirit of her Liturgy. The vestments for Advent 
are purple, the very same as in Lent ; the Glo- 
ria in excelsis Deo is no longer heard; at the 
end of Mass, instead of the Ita missa est, the 
people are dismissed with the Benedicamus 
Domino; the Alleluia is still retained; but 
in churches where the music is rubrical, the or- 
gan is not heard excepting on the third Sunday 
of Advent, when rose-colored vestments are 
allowed. But to compensate for these losses, 
nothing could be more beautiful than the In- 
troits and Antiphons of Advent. The Borate, 
" Drop down dew, ye heavens, and let the clouds 
rain the just ; let the earth be opened and bud 
forth a Saviour," seizes the imagination as if 
it had but now fallen from the inspired lips of 
Isaiah. In the French churches is sung a won- 
derfully beautiful chant founded upon this In- 
troit, which we have listened to, Advent after 
Advent, in monastic churches in America; a 
chant which lives in the memory by reason of 
its plaintive chords, full of supplication, even 
when the full beauty of its phrases is not known 
as when read. "With the Introits comes a tender 
refrain from the Psalms: Qui regis intende; 
" Give ear, Thou that rulest Israel ; Thou that 



CHRISTMAS. 15 

leadest Joseph like a sheep ;" and still another : 
Veni et ostende: Come, Lord, show us Thy 
face;" the very sigh which we can imagine 
must have come from the heart of the Virgin 
Mother on the feast of her Expectation, when 
the Borate again makes the Introit. In the 
Yesperal Antiphons, however, breathes a spirit 
so sublime that they may be said to unite in 
themselves the most exalted sentences from the 
Prophecies and Psalms; especially the Seven 
Greater Antiphons, or the " O's of Advent," as 
they are sometimes called, because all the seven 
begin with this same ejaculation, sung at the 
Magnificat or Canticle of the Blessed Virgin, 
from December 17th to 23d, inclusive. We give 
them entire as too precious to be withheld : 

" Wisdom, that comest out of the mouth of 
the Most High, that reachest from one end to 
another, and dost mightily and sweetly order all 
things: come and teach us the way of prudence ! 

"0 Adonai, and Euler of the house of Israel, 
who didst appear unto Moses in the burning 
bush, and gavest him the law in Sinai: come 
to redeem us with an outstretched arm ! 

"0 Eoot of Jesse, which standest for an en- 
sign of the people, at whom the kings shall shut 
their mouths, and unto whom the Gentiles shall 
seek : come to deliver us, make no tarrying. 

" Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of 
Israel ; that openest and no man shutteth ; and 



16 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

shuttest and no man openeth: come, to bring 
out the prisoners from prison, and them that sit 
in darkness, and in the shadow of death. 

" Day-spring, brightness of the everlasting 
light, Sun of Eighteousness : come, to give light 
to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of 
death ! 

"0 King of the Gentiles, yea and desire 
thereof, Corner-stone that makest of two one : 
come to save man, whom Thou hast made of the 
dust of the earth ! " . 

" Emmanuel, our King and our Law-giver, 
longing of the Gentiles, yea and salvation 
thereof : come to save us, Lord our God ! " 

All the prophetic grandeur of the Old Testa- 
ment, from Genesis to the Maccabees, and all 
the joy of fulfillment in the New, are gathered, 
pressed, into these Antiphons — these anthems 
as they might be called ; and give us an idea 
of the sublimity which runs through the whole 
divine office ; a school, in itself, of everything 
which can ennoble the soul and heart, and 
which may well make of the priest who feeds 
daily on this honey of wisdom, an angel in 
mind and in manners. 

These Antiphons bring us to the Vigil of 
Christmas — that Christmas Eve which is a 
signal for merriment and festivity throughout 
the land. The shops are so many parterres, as 
to color and variety, all the day long; and 



CHRISTMAS. 17 

twilight brings a blaze of light over these 
wonders of the loom and the handicraft of the 
nations ; for there is not one on the face of the 
earth which does not give its skill to the shops 
of Christmas Eve. Formerly the stockings, 

"Hung round the chimney with eare," 

were the authorized mediums for the Christmas 
gifts, waiting for the morning to reveal their 
treasures. But of late the Eve itself is the time 
when Christmas-trees are all a-light, and every 
child's eyes open to catch the first gleam of tiny 
red and blue candles, and the prettiness of all 
sorts that sparkles and twinkles in too many 
forms to be described, from the boughs of this 
wonderful tree ! The home festivities have be- 
gun with cakes and sugars, while on the streets 
of our great cities, midnight finds buyers and 
sellers still busy. This is the popular Christ- 
mas Eve of to-day. Does it seem too joyous to 
disturb? If the ear has taken in all the 
solemnity of the Greater Antiphons, if the soul 
has come within the tender twilight of the four 
weeks of Advent, if the Borate has touched 
the germ of a living expectation, there will be 
something in all this which jars upon a certain 
sensibility developed in the mind, in the heart. 
For, during the last three days where have we 
been in imagination? With that tender Virgin 
Mother and her spouse, Saint Joseph, who have 
left the Holy House of Nazareth to answer to 



18 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

the summons of the Roman Caesar, calling upon 
all the world to come, each to his own city, to 
be enrolled, that Caesar may know over how 
many he i*ules. Gently, indeed, does the soft- 
paced mule bear the double burden of Mary 
and her unborn Babe. Reverently, too, does 
Joseph walk at her side, meditating on the won- 
derful mystery transpiring under his protection. 
But the weary way does not shorten, nor do the 
hardships of the season lessen as they go on. 
He who made the frost and cold and stormy 
winds for His own praise, abates nothing of 
their force when turned against Himself, and, 
with those nearest Him, is their victim. The 
journey which may have seemed short to Joseph 
many a time before, has seemed, now, well 
nigh interminable. But it is coming to an end. 
Already, as the short day retires and the swift- 
footed night approaches, the lights gleam out 
from Bethlehem — David's city, the city of Mary 
and Joseph as descendants of this same king 
of Judah; and the name of this city means none 
other than the "House of Bread;" as if hos- 
pitality were its characteristic. The patient 
mule steps more lightly along the frosty path ; 
there is a promise of rest for the beast and for 
his double burden. Already the eyes of Saint 
Joseph have fastened on the spot where he ex- 
pects to find an open door and a welcome, and 
an evening meal ready to be served ; and thus 



CHRISTMAS. 19 

he enters the narrow streets of Bethlehem of 
Judah, out of which is " to come the Ruler." 
How the first refusal must have fallen on his 
heart like lead ! Then another and another, 
until, withered by the unkindness of his coun- 
trymen and even kinsmen, not towards himself, 
but his precious charge, he looks into the face 
of Mary, the Virgin of fifteen, to be re-assured, 
transported ! Whence is that light which glows 
all over her beautiful young face? Whence 
that serenity w r hich sits enthroned on her brow? 
that ecstacy of contentment in her virginal 
eyes ? Enough. The heart of Joseph is again 
strong. He no longer knocks at inhospitable 
doors to be refused; but, with a meekness 
sweeter than that of Moses when he bore with 
the children of Israel, he turns through the 
winding streets of the town to a sheltered cave 
on its lonely edge, where the ox and the ass have 
been left by their owner for the wintry night. 
What man had refused, the dumb beasts allow 
them to share ; and it is here, in the rude sta- 
ble and beside the manger, that the Church and 
her children put themselves in spirit on Christ- 
mas Eve. It is in memory of the inhospitality 
of Bethlehem and the hardships of that day's 
journey and of the cave, that the Church keeps 
her vigil and her fast; a fast exceeded in 
strictness only by that of Good Friday. It is to 
the un-illumined cave that she calls the Chris- 



20 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

tian world, its fathers and mothers, sons, 
daughters, and little ones, of all degrees; and 
in all the Catholic cities of Europe what do we 
see on Christmas Eve? In Paris itself — gay, 
worldly Paris, which is called infidel — the 
crowds turn, as midnight approaches, not to the 
wonted marts of toys and trifles, of elegancies 
and luxuries, but towards Notre Dame, Saint 
Eoche, the Madeleine, Saint Germain, towards 
all her great churches. On that night, the most 
timid can w r alk in safety along her boulevards, 
or her narrowest streets, for one mind seems to 
possess the crowd ; while in Eome, who can give 
an idea of the living streams which set, more 
than all, towards Saint Mary Major, on the 
Esquiline Hill ? Not the first Saint Mary's of 
Eome ; that belongs to the Trastevere ; but the 
largest of eighty churches within her limits 
which bear that beloved name, or Saint Mary's 
of the Crib, as it is also called; for there Eome 
venerates the Crib discovered by Saint Helen. 

No one can fail to see, by all this, how utterly 
the idea of a social festival, a family gathering, 
is lost in the abyss of the mystery in which 
the festival begins; an abyss into which 
myriads of angels looked only to fall, while 
others beheld it for their everlasting reward; 
for it is the mystery of the Incarnation ! Just 
so far as the Incarnation is a well-spring of 
Christian thought and practice, just so far is the 



CHRISTMAS. 21 

Christmas festival a religious rather than a dom- 
estic one. It is only when the idea of the house- 
hold dominates over that of the Christian family, 
that Christmas loses its distinctive type, and is 
merged into the list of merry-makings. Of the 
awful degradation effected in the mind of a com- 
munity, of a nation, by such an exchange, it is 
impossible to speak worthily. It is to drag down 
to a merely natural plane the most sublime and 
the most significant of supernatural facts. It 
is to uncrown the noblest idealities of the human 
race. It is to ignore the only tradition which 
can keep alive the understanding of the super- 
natural creation and the supernatural redemp- 
tion of the human race. In this country, only 
within the precincts of a convent have we ever 
seen a Christmas Eve according to our ideal, 
according to what poets have sung and inspired 
artists have painted. This ideal is preserved in 
the world but too seldom, we fear, excepting in 
places remote from towns. We know of one spot 
where a chapel stands close to what might be 
called a chateau, with its high, overhanging roof , 
its piazzas, its domain of wood and field, of hill 
and valley, of running brook and far off lake- 
shore, where the break of the waves may be heard 
at midday. And in this chapel, where many a 
mass has been said on week-days and lesser festi- 
vals, the Christmas vigil is kept as strictly as in a 
convent. Here, the altar-piece is a Nativity, and 



22 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

the Christmas garlands and decorations make 
a cave for the Virgin Mother; and here, until the 
stroke of midnight, all is silence, darkness and 
meditation. Then all is light and joy and praise ! 
But we must tell of one other holy solitude, where 
years ago, one who is both a poet and an artist 
settled with his family, in a home built, literally 
by their own hands. When Christmas was near, 
a surprise was prepared for the little ones ; but 
how different from the toy-laden tree which 
keeps so many little folk awake in anticipation ! 
There were no stockings, even, hung around 
the huge chimney, but the young ones were taken 
from their low beds, wrapped in blankets and 
set before a mysterious screen. Just at mid- 
night the screen vanished and before them was 
an almost breathing picture of that Babe who 
had chosen, almost nineteen centuries ago, to be 
born in a stable and to be cradled in a manger ! 
It was as if a vision met their eyes, so blinded 
were they by the sudden brightness, and an 
"Oh!" of awe and of rapture broke from their 
lips as they shaded their eyes to look still more 
intently at the vision. In both of these lovely 
solitudes the tradition of Christmas has been 
kept; and no one can say that the Christmas 
had lost anything at their hands of poetry, of 
impressiveness or of delight. Nor could such 
Christmases ever be forgotten or ever merge 
themselves in the festive recollections of other 



CHRISTMAS. 23 

festive seasons. Forever and forever, that Christ- 
mas altar in the home chapel, that picture of 
the Divine Infant on His bed of straw, on the 
walls of the secluded Wisconsin homestead, will 
live in the memories of the children of those 
households ; and the experiences of life in other 
lands or communities, rich in art, and in all the 
circumstances which foster the ideal, will only 
deepen the impression, and thus make one the 
associations of childhood and those of the pil- 
grim to the noblest shrines of Christendom. 
There will be no missing link in the religious 
traditions of such a life, beginning with the 
Incarnation. The immeasurable dignity and 
fruitfulness of such traditions above those which 
are now so popular among us, is one on which 
we may well allow our thoughts to dwell, until 
Bethlehem is incorporated into the innermost 
tissue of our everyday life. 

Some one has said that the charm of the sun- 
rise is over when the sun has risen. But what 
shall we say of that Midnight Mass which is 
like the glory of a newly-risen sun ? How well 
we remember our hurried steps over the crispy 
snow of December on our way to the near city 
convent a little before midnight ! or the gliding 
with veiled nuns along the galleries of a convent 
far from towns, in a silence known only among 
religious, to the chapel which was itself a cave, 
but which was suddenly illuminated as the bell 



24 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

struck for midnight, all the altars blazing with 
candles ! How the Venite Adoremus was 
more than sweet music ! how the garlands and 
the flowers and the incense were more than 
decorations ! the expressions of a joy too deep 
for words, and which welled over in tears ! And 
we remember, too a Midnight Mass within 
twenty-four hours of our landing on shore, after 
six tempest-tost weeks on the ocean — when 
thousands within the sacred fane were hushed 
as one tranced being, and when the songs of 
angels seemed the only music. The Child was 
born; the midnight of the Cave had disap- 
peared ; we were among the shepherds, with 
Mary and Joseph beside the Crib ! It was the 
fulfillment of an ocean Advent of expectation; 
and the joy of Christmas was there, although 
not one in that strange land might have for us 
a Cl Merrie Christmas ! " 

One of the most touching customs for Christ- 
mas is that of preparing a Crib in some part of 
the church ; which dates to that seraphic lover 
of holy poverty, Saint Francis of Assisi. We are 
told that, stirred as he was in his own soul by 
the tenderest sympathy for the little Infant shiv- 
ering in the # Cave of Bethlehem in the December 
midnight, he caught the idea of making all this 
present and real to the eyes of his disciples. 
A cave was prepared ; a manger was filled with 
straw ; the ox and the ass took their places be- 



CHRISTMAS. 25 

side it. On the straw lay the radiant Child so 
lowly in His majesty, and beside Him His Virgin 
Mother and her virgin spouse and the simple 
shepherds. How poor it all was — must have 
been — from all we know of Saint Francis and 
of what he was likely to do! "How inade- 
quate ! " no doubt some of those said whose in- 
genuity had been taxed to prepare it. But 
when midnight came and the Midnight Masa, 
and when Saint Francis rose to preach to them 
with the Crib in sight, who can ever tell the 
wonderful effect of that Christmas sermon ! 
Transported out of himself, he took all his 
listeners with him, and the whole churchful of 
religious prostrated themselves before the In- 
fant in his Manger-Crib. From the convent 
of Saint Francis the custom spread all over 
Christendom. Churches, monasteries, convents, 
homes, castles and cabins, had each its repre- 
sentation of the Crib. It was the stable, the man- 
ger, the meekness of Saint Joseph, the rapture of 
the Virgin Mother, the absolute poverty of the 
Holy Family, which Saint Francis put before his 
followers. And we must do as Saint Francis did, 
if we would win souls to the simplicity of the Cave 
and the Holy Infancy. It can never be too 
humble to draw the hearts of the multitude, who 
press around it with a rapture of love and repara- 
tion which no grand painting or representation 
of any other sort could ever inspire. 



26 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

In the United States, the Midnight Mass is 
said in churches at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and is followed immediately by the "Mass 
of the Aurora," as it is called. In ancient 
times, the Pope went directly from his Mid- 
night Mass to the Church of Saint Anastasia, 
who was martyred on the 25th of December, 
303, and the second Collect of this Mass still 
keeps her in distinguished remembrance. The 
third or Solemn High Mass has so many graces 
attached to it, that we can not allow even the 
weariness which comes after the early Masses 
to prevail against us. Every priest has the 
privilege of saying three Masses on Christmas 
Day ; and it should be considered the privilege 
of every Christian to assist at three Masses, if 
possible. Nor can any one be indifferent to 
the significance, as well as the beauty and the 
grandeur, of this Mass, for is it not the tri- 
umphal song of the Incarnation? That Incar- 
nation, which began in the obscurity and silence 
of a room in the Holy House of Nazareth, was 
fulfilled in the gloom and the humiliation of a 
stable, but is now glorified to the eyes of all men 
by the magnificence of altars, of golden vest- 
ments, and if in a cathedral by all the solem- 
nity of Pontifical ceremonial. If we have en- 
tered the stable to adore the Divine Infant in 
the Crib, it will relieve the wish of the heart to 
do something in honor of this little Babe, this 



CHRISTMAS. 27 

Incarnate Word, who "came unto His own, and 
His own receieved Him not, " to assist at the 
Grand Third Mass of Christmas. We shall, in- 
stinctively, offer it in expiation for that igno- 
rance which shut against Him the doors of the 
pleasant homes of Bethlehem, that ignorance 
which leaves Him, even now unrecognized by 
so many kindly hearts in the world which is 
called Christian ; which cuts short His claims to 
worship and obedience, and even while Christ- 
mas greetings are sounding in our ears, makes 
Him forgotten in the love of worldly enjoy- 
ments. It will be just one little act of repara- 
tion to the Babe in the manger; and how 
precious is every such act, however small. 
Years ago, a little girl, scarcely four years old 
was in the habit of stealing to our side as we 
said our prayers. One day she asked about a 
picture of the Nativity which hung near. In as 
simple words as we could, we told her about the 
Babe born in a stable because no one had any 
room in their houses for His Mother; and how, 
when He grew up, He was put to death by cruel 
men, all because of His goodness. This child 
had never been baptized and "must not be 
proselyted ; " but no sooner did this natural 
story come to her ears than her eyes filled with 
tears, and throwing up her childish arms she 
cried oat: "Let me kiss the little Jesus baby 
*gain ! " It was the true spirit of reparation ; 



28 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

and that kiss, we believe, has never been, never 
will be, forgotten by Him who lay in His Crib 
in the Stable of Bethlehem. This spirit of 
reparation, which is so simple, and so natural, 
that a child practices it instinctively, inspires 
the sweetest and the most sublime offerings 
made by man to God; and while the most 
hidden, they are the most powerful to win 
graces for ourselves or for others. This was 
the offering of His Virgin Mother, of His foster 
father, who endeavored to supply the lack of 
love in others by the fervor of their own ; and this 
is our offering when we attend the Solemn High 
Mass, or better still, the Pontifical Mass, in 
honor of the " Word made flesh and dwelling 
among us." As a reward for all this, instant 
and full, comes the Papal Benediction, bestowed 
on Christmas Day upon all who, having con- 
fessed and communicated, have paid the hom- 
age of adoration to the Infant Jesus. 

But what of that even-song, the magnificent 
"Second Vespers " of Christmas? Is it possible 
that our dinners on that day are so elaborate 
as to give us no time to assist at Vespers ? Is 
it possible that we have so many and such dig- 
nified guests — guests so indifferent themselves 
to the Liturgy of the day — that we can not join 
in the Blessed Virgin's own Magnificat, and 
that the Antiphons of this great day are to be 
lost for us ? Is it possible that anything which 



CHRISTMAS. 29 

the world calls pleasure can keep us from that 
Manger-Crib where lies the Infant who is to re- 
deem us and all we hold dear? Has He lost 
His charm so soon? Is there nothing in that 
smile which draws us irresistibly from che 
luxurious home and makes us almost weep to 
think how comfortable it is ; still more from the 
groaning tables of the banquet? Let us steal 
away from all these for awhile, and see how the 
Church attires herself, with her Pontiffs, to sing 
the praises of her Infant King. 

Those who recited the dramatic Third Ke- 
sponsory at Matins : 

"0 ye shepherds, speak, and tell us what ye 
have seen; who is appeared in the earth? 

We saw the new-born Child, and Angels sing- 
ing praise to the Lord. 

Speak; what have ye seen? And tell us of 
the Birth of Christ. 

We saw the new-born Child, and Angels sing- 
ing praise to the Lord. 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and 
to the Holy Ghost. 

We saw the new-born Child, and Angels sing- 
ing praise to the Lord, " — will enter into the 
spirit of the Antiphons at Vespers. 

"First Antiphon. — Thine shall be the domin- 
ion in the day of Thy power, amid the bright- 
ness of the saints ; from the womb, before the 
day-star, have I begotten Thee. 



30 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

Second Antiphon. — The Lord sent redemption 
unto His people, He hath commanded His 
covenant forever. 

Third Antiphon. — Unto the upright hath 
arisen light in darkness ; the Lord is gracious, 
and full of compassion, and righteous. 

Fourth Antiphon. — With the Lord there is 
mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. 

Fifth Antiphon.— Of the fruit of Thy body 
will I set upon Thy throne. 

Antiphon at the Song \*f the Blessed Virgin. — 
This day the Christ is born : this day the Sav- 
iour is appeared : this day the Angels sing 
praise in the earth, and the Archangels rejoice : 
this day the righteous are glad and say : Glory 
to God in the highest. Alleluia. " 

And each one set to its own celestial music, 
sung ages ago, as to-day, by choirs loving the 
chaste melodies they sang! No one can right- 
fully forego these sacred chants for any worldly 
reason ; for the feast was given for this very 
end— the praise of the Babe of Bethlehem. To 
claim the feast, yet to neglect its intention, is 
one of the — shall we say sins, or blunders, of 
our time ? 

When we give ourselves time to study the 
Divine Office, we find it a composition so won- 
derful in its parts, with such a decorum in the 
carrying out of its festivals, that we are re- 
minded of the dignified action of the Greek 



CHRISTMAS. 31 

drama. One of the most striking examples of 
this is that of rounding out a festival by an Oc- 
tave. The eighth day brings back enough of the 
glory of the feast not only to revive devotion, 
but to secure its fruits ; while every day of the 
Octave is a sweet and gentle reminder of it. 
The Octave of Christmas does not confine itself 
to the repetition of the festival, but gives, first : 
the Feast of Saint Stephen, the first martyr, 
whose relics lie in Eome under the High Altar 
in the center of the largest rotunda of the 
world. All around this proto-martyr, on the 
vast walls bare of other ornament, are represen- 
tations of the martyrdoms of the three first 
Christian centuries; and here the Eomans 
bring their children to teach them how to die 
for their Faith, while on the walls of the little 
"Golden Chapel" of Nicholas V., in the Vatican, 
Fra Angelico left his tribute of honor to the 
first martyr in one of the most perfect frescoes 
which ever came from his hand. The second feast 
is that of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist, 
and the third is that of the " Holy Innocents," 
the " Childermas " of our ancestors. In our 
times, the popular mind is too sensitive to 
allow it to dwell upon the pathetic details of 
this event, and no artist thinks of reproducing 
it. But in the ages of the revival this was a 
favorite subject, and taken literally from Saint 
Matthew. It is to be seen on the floor of the 



32 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

Cathedral at Siena, represented with wonderful 
delicacy as to execution, and is, at the same 
time, most powerful in action. Unlike many, 
even of the Florentine school, it is, indeed, hor- 
rible as to cruelty, but without grossness ; and 
the mothers vainly endeavor to protect their 
children, not as lionesses, but as broken-hearted, 
distracted mothers. On the inner wall of that 
same Saint Stephen of the Rotunda on the 
Coelian Hill, where lie the relics of the first 
martyr, we find the Holy Innocents. The first 
picture as we turn from the small side altar of 
SS. Primus and Feliciamus, where are exquisite 
mosaics representing these saints, is that of the 
Crucifixion ; and at the feet of our Lord, the 
King of martyrs, lie the Holy Innocents who 
suffered for Him. Fra Angelico, with all his gen- 
tleness of soul, treated this subject in one of 
the choral books of his monastery as an actual 
event going on under the eyes ; but in one of 
the choral books of the ancient Church of 
Saint Ambrose at Milan it is a remembered 
event, and the Holy Innocents are seen with 
palms in their hands, and the blood trickling 
from their throats, while they sing their song of 
deliverance "from the snare of the fowler." 
But far back of these pictures as to date, is the 
old mosaic of the Holy Innocents in the Church 
of Saint Paul Outside the Walls ; while it is one 
of the events, closely connected with the Incar- 



CHRISTMAS. 33 

nation, represented among the mosaics of the 
triumphal arch of Saint Mary Major, erected in 
the fifth century under Sixtus III. The beauti- 
ful asylum for orphans on the Piazza Annunziata, 
Florence, called the Hospital of the Holy Inno- 
cents, has for an altar-piece one of the two 
pictures painted by Ghirlandajo representing 
the Holy Innocents; and on each of the span- 
drels between the arches of the arcade which 
makes the beauty of its front is represented, in 
terra-cotta relief by Andrea della Robbia, an 
Innocent in swaddling clothes. And yet all 
these tributes of the pictorial art are antedated 
by the Hymn of Prudentius, the poet of the 
fourth century, which still makes one of the 
Breviary hymns, and certain verses of which, 
beginning with : 

"Lovely flowers of martyrs, hail!" 

6very child should learn before leaving the 
nursery. But the Romans of to-day are not 
satisfied to leave the story of the Holy Innocents 
to past ages. The day of their feast is honored 
in a way to give children the precedence in the 
public eye. On this day the little Roman 
acolyte believes himself the " observed of all 
observers ; " for on this day the Roman boys 
preach sermons, after the manner of great ora- 
tors, in the ancient Church of Ara Coeli, close 
by the Capitol. The special fitness of this 
church is evident, so soon as we remember that 



34 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

one of its altars stands where, according to the 
old Roman tradition, stood one raised by 
Augustus to the mysterious Being who would be 
born of a Virgin, as declared by the sibyl whom 
he had consulted ; and to the Franciscans, who 
took from their holy founder such a special 
devotion to the Holy Infancy and the Crib, 
belongs, very properly, in their office as guar- 
dians of the Ara Coeli and the Bambino, or 
Infant, the keeping up of this commemoration 
of the Holy Innocents among the Roman boys. 
Of the Octave of Christmas, the Feast of the 
Circumcision, it is almost useless to speak at 
present. The Christian tradition is so com- 
pletely absorbed in the social, that it comes to 
most Catholics, even, especially when observed 
only as a day of devotion, as the beginning of 
the New Year, with all the festivities of open 
house and open doors; a custom gracious and 
innocent, when not carried to excess. Our 
Lord in His Crib was very patient with men. 
He exacted very little. This may be a motive 
for some tender spirit to give more than is 
exacted ; and there is no one who should not 
honor the mystery of the first blood-shedding of 
Our Lord by assisting at the Holy Sacrifice on 
that day, even in dioceses where it is not of 
obligation. 



OUR LADY AT THE CRIB. 



II. 

It is the vigil of Christmas, and we are in 
Home ! The Advent fast and abstinence has 
not yet been broken ; even the children have not 
had their boxes of bon bons, and the joy of 
anticipation which pervades all hearts, has a 
certain tender solemnity in it which chastens 
the smile and throws a hush over tne house- 
hold. The slender evening collation has been 
taken, and we hasten— where ? To what church 
of the Eternal City shall we hasten to-night 
— not for the Midnight Mass, which is not 
permitted in the churches, but for that Mass 
which precedes midnight, and leaves us at 
ihat hour in an ecstasy before the "Child born 
to us, a Saviour ?" Where, w T e repeat, but to 
the church of all churches, which keeps the 

35 



36 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

memory of the Incarnation and Nativity before 
the eyes of the Christian world, and has done so 
from its foundation — Sancta Maria ad Nives, 
or "Saint Mary of the Snow;"* Santa Maria 
Maggiore, "Saint Mary Major" or "The Great 
Saint Mary's;" and known by another, and to- 
night still dearer name, Sancta Maria ad Prae- 
sepe, or "Saint Mary of the Crib?" For here is 
treasured the rough manger in which Mary, 
Virgin Mother, cradled her Divine Son when she 
had wrapped Him in His swaddling-clothes. It 
is then to Sancta Maria Praesepe that we turn 
our steps to-night, and oh, how near we seem to 
come, in Eome, to Bethlehem and its Stable ! 
We pause a momont on the summit of the 
Quattro Fontane, and look down on the grand 
old Basilica, founded in the year 352, and ever 
since the delight of Christendom ; and as we look 
down and see, dimly defined, the tall campanile, 
the twin domes, the outline of the vast church, 
and even the obelisk of ancient Egypt, we feel 
as if we belonged to the band of shepherds that 
watched their flocks by night and heard the first 
Gloria in excelsis Deo, then looked toward Beth- 
lehem, as told by the angel, to see a lambent 



*So called because its site and area were determined by a 
miraculous fall of snow on the 5th of August, 351. All this 
was indicated by a vision or dream sent on that same night to 
Patrician John and his wife and Pope Liberius. Ancient 
mosaics on the exterior wall of the basilica represent the three 
dreams, as identically the same, and also the founding of the 
church. 



AT THE CRIB. 37 

light above the town : for in the darkness of the 
late hour the lights from within give forth a 
luminous atmosphere, like that which fills and 
even surrounds the Stable of Bethlehem in the 
pictures of the great Christian masters. 

The pause is only for a moment, and we take, 
instinctively, the swift pace of the crowds hurry- 
ing in the same direction and for the same pur- 
pose. But as we walk quickly past the obelisk, 
too swiftly to turn our eyes even, the inscriptions 
come back to us with a meaning never realized 
before.* On entering the church, it seems to 
have been transformed ; still more, all its deco- 
rations stand forth with a significance we have 
passed over in the visits made to it with 
our guide-books. The wondrously delicate mo- 
saics of the architrave were always too dim to 
be studied, but now each one has its branch 



*This obelisk is one of two which Augustus brought with him 
from Egypt, and which he intended to place in the Ciecus 
Maximus and the Campus Maktius. His death prevented this, 
and ClauLuus had them set up near the tomb of Augustus, where 
they remained until thrown down by barbarian invaders. In 
1587 Sixtus V. had one of them restored and placed at the foot 
of thehill on which Santa Maria Maggiore stands. The inscrip- 
tions read thus : 

Cheisti Dei in eteenum viventis cunabula ljstissime 
COLO qui moetui sepulceo Augusti teistis seeviebam— 
" I who served with sadness the sepulchre of the dead Augus- 
tus, honor gladly the Crib of Christ, the ever-living God." 

" Quem Augustus de Viegine nascitueum vivens apoea- 
vit. seq. deinceps dominum dici vetuit, adoeo — " whom 
Augustus, when alive, adored as to be born or a Virgin, and 
then forbade to be honored with the title of God, Him do 1 
adore." 

Cheistus pee invictam ceucem populo pacem pe^bet, 
qui Augusti pace in peaesepe nasci voluit— "Christ gives 
peace to the world who, by His triumphant Cross, willed to be 
born in a manger during the peace of Augustus." 



38 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

candelabrum filled with wax-lights, and we 
remember that each mosaic gives an event drawn 
from the Old Testament, quoted by the Fathers 
of the Council of Ephesus, 431, as prefiguring 
the Divine Maternity of Mary. Through this 
avenue of precious mosaics of the years from 
432 to 440, bearing witness to the lively faith 
in the Incarnation — all ablaze too, as if to honor 
it with this testimony of fourteen centuries — we 
stand before the triumphal arch to see, on its 
ground of gold, those scenes drawn from the 
story of the New Testament, which declare His 
Incarnation and Nativity, and the wonders at- 
tending them; all dating to that magnificent 
Council of Ephesus, which declared, with such 
joyful acclamation, the Divinity and Humanity 
of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary — true God 
and true Man ! It is directly under this Arch of 
the Triumph of the Incarnation, on the High 
Altar itself, that we shall see exposed, for the 
veneration of Christians, the reliquary contain- 
ing the precious Crib of the Infant of Bethle- 
hem ; and if the early ages of Christianity had 
no other proof to give of their love for the Divine 
Babe born in a manger, or their utter forgetful- 
ness of the humiliation, in the presence of the 
joy, this exposition of the Crib on the eve of 
Christmas would suffice. The story is one every 
Catholic should know by heart, and the sweet- 
ness of this flower of Christian tradition should 



AT THE CRIB. 39 

linger in every household where a cradle is 
rocked or a mother sings her lullaby. 

We have not forgotten the small wooden 
cradle, with its quaint wooden canopy, in which 
we were rocked — our brothers and sisters as 
well ; nor those, still more simple, in which the 
fathers, the mothers, the grandfathers or grand- 
mothers were rocked, and which we had seen 
stored in family attics and old-fashioned gar- 
rets, to be brought down for each generation ; 
only differing, by way of some delicate needle- 
work or feminine decoration, from the cradle of 
a hundred years before, — when we stood before 
the grand High Altar of " Saint Mary of the 
Crib;" nor did we question the exquisitely 
human tradition which carried us back to the 
time when no son or heir of a merely princely 
house made precious the five boards of a 
wooden Crib, but the Incarnate One, whose will 
created the light, divided the sea from the 
land, formed man from the dust of the earth, 
and then breathed into his nostrils that breath 
of life which, in man, is " a living soul." There 
was no question of possibilities or probabilities 
in all this ; it was merely one of the lovely cir- 
cumstances attending upon the Incarnation and 
Nativity of Him to whom Saint Thomas of 
Aquin, in one of his hymns to the Blessed Sac- 
rament, cries out in an ecstacy of love : 



40 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

"O kind, O loving One ! 

O Sweet Jesus, Mary's Son ! "* 

The story is this. The conversion of Con- 
stantine proved to be the conversion of his 
mother, Saint Helen ; and notwithstanding her 
advanced years, and the fatigues of such a 
journey in those ages, she went to the Holy 
Land, not only to kiss the spots which Our Lord 
had made sacred by His presence or touch, but 
to rescue them from the hands of Pagans, and 
give them back to the Christian world as incen- 
tives to piety, as well as priceless treasures. It 
is to the zeal, as all men know, of this Empress 
mother, from whom Constantine must hav T e 
inherited many of the qualities which made him 
great, that we owe the relic of the True Cross; 
and at the same time she discovered the clue to 
the poor little Crib in which Our Lord was laid 
as an Infant. We know how carefully the 
Hebrew people cherished, guarded everything 
in the least connected with their faith. Nor 
did they lose this habit of veneration on enter- 
ing the Christian Church. With a delicacy and 
fidelity to which we owe the most precious relics 
in Christendom, they preserved the memory of 
everything connected with the Incarnation, 
Life, Passion, Death, Eesurrection and Ascen- 
sion of Jesus of Nazareth. They might not 



*0 Clemens; O Pie; 

O Dulcis Jesu, Fili Mariae ! 



AT THE CRIB. 41 

possess, hold in hand, but they never lost sight 
of these relics ; and when Saint Helen went to 
Jerusalem, evidence, not to be disputed, 
attested the verity of these relics. With the 
joy of a true woman, as well as of a true 
Christian, she kissed the poor little boards, 
even then brown with age; absolutely worth- 
less save to the believing soul. But this 
was not all. With the generosity of an em- 
press, she covered the five boards with plates of 
silver, and placed them in the Grotto of the 
Nativity, which she had lined with slabs of 
marble. All this was about the year 325. From 
this time the Crib was never lost sight of. So 
far from this, it drew pilgrims from every part 
of the world to its side. 

In 642 the Orient, and the Sacred places 
themselves, were over-run by Mohammedans, 
and all the moveable relics were sent to places 
of safety ; among others, the Crib was sent to 
Rome, to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, 
and deposited in the Chapel of the Crucifix. To 
this chapel, also, were brought the relics of 
Saint Jerome, the hermit of Bethlehem, the 
translator of the Holy Scriptures, and one of the 
four Latin Doctors ; as if his place were still 
by the Crib of his Infant Lord. 

But the silver plates given by Saint Helen 
are not its only covering. The Crib, w T ith its 
imperial plates undisturbed, was deposited in a 



42 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

magnificent reliquary given by Donna Maria 
Emmanuel, Duchess of Hermosa. It repre- 
sents our Lord as an Infant lying in a Crib, 
silver gilt, and enriched with bas-relievi, chis- 
eled in the same metal; while still earlier, in 
1606, Margaret of Austria had shown her devo- 
tion to the Incarnation by providing a precious 
covering for the Crib of the Divine Infant. The 
precise time for removing the relic from its 
usual repository in the Chapel of the Crucifix is 
before the first Mass called of Midnight, when 
it is placed on a temporary altar in the Chapel 
of the Crib, as it is named, or sometimes the 
Sistine Chapel, as the body of Sixtus V. reposes 
here in a beautiful tomb, and under the dome 
which he built. Here we see the statue of 
Saint John Cajetan holding the Divine Infant 
in his arms, as he is said to have done in a 
vision. At the end of the Midnight Mass, a 
Cardinal Bishop and attendants bring the Crib, 
in procession, under a costly case of crystal 
given by \ hilip IV., of Spain, to the High Altar, 
where it can be seen and venerated by all the 
faithful, and at this altar, before this relic of 
the Nativity, is said the Mass of the Aurora. 

To speak of the Hi fe h Altar of Santa Maria 
Maggiore on Christmas night, is to recall the 
veneration of Christians for the mystery of the 
Nativity from the first age of Christianity to 
the present. To speak of "The Nativity in 



AT THE CRIB. 43 

Art," without alluding to this High Altar and 
its surroundings, is to forget not only the tradi- 
tions of the Christian religion, but the story of 
its art. 

The Altar itself is an antique sarcophagus of 
porphyry, on which rests the table of black and 
white marble, supported by four angels in 
gilded bronze ; and this sarcophagus incloses 
the relics of Patrician John and his wife, who 
built the original Sancta Maria ad Nives. The 
canopy, of bronze gilt, is supported by four 
columns of porphyry, around which are en- 
twined branches of palm in bronze, and the 
whole is of such magnificence as to fill the eye, 
in the midst of all the mosaics of architrave 
and apse. Above this High Altar is that Arch 
of Triumph of the fifth century, its mosaics set 
on a ground of gold, and a description of 
which cannot be too familiar to those who 
desire to be theologically devout, timing and 
shaping their devotions according to the spirit 
of the Christian dogmas, rather than by any 
private fancy or attraction. 

In the middle of the arch is seen an Altar, on 
w r hich is a book with seven seals. Above this 
rises a small black cross, veiled, to symbolize 
the Humanity ; and, above this still, a cross, 
large and studded with gems, standing upon a 
throne, by which is symbolized the Divinity of 
Our Lord. All this is given on a medallion, 



44 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

which is upheld by the two great Apostles, SS. 
Peter and Paul, and accompanied by the 
winged symbols of the Four Evangelists. On 
the same line with the medallion, beginning at 
the extreme left for the spectator, is the Annun- 
ciation : the Virgin of Nazareth sitting, w T ith 
two attendant angels while another seems to 
deliver his message. At the same time, in the 
air above her, is seen the Dove of the Holy 
Spirit, and an angel winging his flight towards 
her; two actions in one picture. On the other 
side of the medallion, on the same line, is the 
Purification, or the Presentation ; and never 
has it been given in art with more dignity. The 
procession of saintly figures, the action of 
Simeon and Anne, and even the device to bring 
in the two doves which were to ransom the 
Divine Infant under the Old Law, are worthy to 
be studied, and was studied, we may be certain, 
by those who have most successfully represented 
it; while it must have entered, necessarily, into 
the traditions of art which found their way to 
Umbria, and under which Raphael worked when 
he painted from his own youthful ideas of this 
scene. 

On the second zone, below the first — directly, 
too, below the Annunciation — is the Adoration 
of the Magi, in which Our Lord is represented, 
not on His Mother's lap, but sitting erect upon 
His throne : the Infant of days, and yet the 



AT THE CRIB. 45 

Eternal and Omnipotent One. At His side, in 
the place of honor, stands Mary, majestic even 
among the angels who attend upon Him behind 
His throne, while the three kings present their 
gifts. Opposite this, on the same zone, is the 
Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple by 
Mary and Joseph; and below these two, the 
Reception of the Wise Men by Herod, and the 
Massacre of the Innocents. All these were exe- 
cuted by the order of Pope Sixtus III., between 
the years 432 and 440. But their value is 
increased by three centuries, when we remember 
that, although executed at the order of Sixtus, 
this Pontiff was but carrying out the design of 
his predecessor, Pope Celestine, who died soon 
after the Council of Ephesus, and, at his own 
request, was deposited * in the Catacomb of 
Santa Priscilla, on the Salarian Way, in which 
these same subjects had been treated before the 
year 100. Thus our Arch of Triumph in Santa 
Maria Maggiore, standing above the High Altar 
on which is exposed the Crib of Bethlehem on 
this Christmas morning — between the Midnight 
and the Aurora Mass — is the link which unites 
the belief of Christians to-day in the Incarna- 
tion and the honor paid to the Nativity of Our 
Lord, and the belief in that same Incarnation, 
and the honor paid to that same Nativity in the 
first century of the Christian era. To say that 
here are no representations before the fifth 



46 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

century, and to argue therefrom that the Nativ- 
ity was overshadowed by any mystery whatso- 
ever, is to be ignorant of the art of the Cata- 
combs in the year 100 ; or knowing this, to 
withhold it. 

Is it not time for lay Catholics to study the 
records of Christianity in her sublime monu- 
ments, even when those monuments lie within 
the shadow of a Catacomb ? Can they not afford 
to leave the pleasant sunshine awhile, in order 
to set their eyes upon those traces which Chris- 
tianity has left of its dawn, and the very fresh- 
ness of its "Hour of Prime." on the walls of a 
cemetery where were deposited the ashes of a 
Saint Priscilla, a Saint Pudens, and a Claudia, 
and where a Pope of the fifth century asked to 
be laid, among the testimonials so touching, and 
a.t the same time so beautiful, of the delight of 
the Christians of the first century in the Nativity 
of Our Lord, and all its charming circumstances ? 
Nor can we forget, if we know anything of the 
signs of the times, that those Catacombs were 
opened, not for the gratification of our curiosity 
but as giving us a grand vantage ground on 
which to make our stand on the questions of the 
antiquity of our present symbolism, our present 
ritual, as well as our present form of Christian 
Art. 

Behold on this Christmas morning in Eome, 
in Sancte Maria ad Praesepe, how the Church puts 



AT THE CRIB. 47 

forth her dogmas to the eyes of her children, as 
well as to their understandings and their hearts ! 

The glorious colors of her pavement of Opus 
Alexandrinum, the avenue of mighty columns, 
as through "a forest primeval ;" the stories of the 
Old Testament, told in precious mosaics along 
her architrave ; the stories of the New Testament, 
in mosaics still more precious, on her Arch of 
Triumph ; and all centering in one point of light 
where the Adorable Sacrifice of the Redemption 
is offered on the very Altar where rests the Crib 
of the Infant who was true God and true Man ! 
"Verily, verily," we seem to hear the voice of 
this same Jesus saying to us, "the words of the 
prophets have been fulfilled in your time !" 

Do we wonder that the Eoman Christmas is 
no merry-making, no household festivity, no 
idyl of poesy, no ballad of minstrels, no song- 
book or folk-lore, but the opening Canto of an 
Epic as grand as the Incarnation, the Redemp- 
tion, the Resurrection, in the ages of the Eter- 
nity that is past, the Eternity that is present, 
and the Eternity that is to come ? 

Let us lift our eyes and behold ! Let us lift 
up our hearts and adore ! Let us lift up our 
voices and praise ! Still more : let us yield our- 
selves up to the mighty genius of Christianity, 
and allow ourselves to be borne upward and 
onward by the tides of faith, of hope, of love, 
coursing through her heart. Let us catch the 



48 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

inspiration of her hymn of praise, and join our 
voices with hers who is to-day, above all other 
days, Saint Mary at the Crib ! 



THE EPIPHANY. 



III. 

Between the Octave of Christmas and the 
second day of February comes a feast of such 
joy and exultation and such grandeur of cir- 
cumstance, that it has been called the "Gentiles' 
Christmas." The Epiphany — or manifestation of 
Our Lord — comes on the sixth day of January, 
that "Twelfth Mght" which is a name associ- 
ated with everything joyous. This feast takes 
for its symbol the star w T hich went before the 
wise men until it stood over the stable "where 
the young Child was," according to Saint Mat- 
thew. In her office for this day, the Church 
brings forward the magnincent prophecy from 
the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah : "Arise, be en- 
lightened, Jerusalem, for thy light is come ;" 
and ends only with that beautiful prediction 

49 



50 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

which was to be fulfilled so literally : "The mul- 
titude of camels shall cover thee, the drome- 
daries of Madian and Epha : all they from Saba 
shall come, bringing gold and frankincense, 
and showing forth praise to the Lord ;" and for 
the Gospel, the second chapter of Saint Mat- 
thew, giving a full account of the visit of the 
wise men or the "Three Kings," as they are 
popularly represented. At the sentence: "They 
found the Child with Mary His Mother, and fall- 
ing down they adored ilim," all kneel, uniting 
their adorations with that of the Three Kings. 
The offertory is from the sixty-fourth Psalm : 
"The kings of Tharsis and of the islands shall 
offer presents ; the kings of the Arabians and 
of Saba shall bring gifts ; and all kings of the 
earth shall adore Him ; all nations shall serve 
Him ;" and, in the secret, we are told the signifi- 
cation of these offerings. In the antiphons 
and responsories is gathered all the beauty of 
prophecy and of Gospel, and the Homily of 
Saint Leo the Great is like another choral 
hymn in honor of the Feast of the Manifesta- 
tion of Jesus Christ to the world. The tradi- 
tions run that the two other manifestations of 
Our Lord, viz. : that at His baptism and the 
first miracle, are commemorated on this day ; 
and one of the Breviary hymns makes mention 
of all three. The other hymn is familiar to 
every one : 



THE EPIPHANY. 51 

"Bethlehem ! of noblest cities." 

But the artists hold fast to the one tradition 
of the Three Kings, and the magnificence of the 
circumstances has not been overlooked by them. 
The coming of the Three Kings often makes the 
middle distance, as with Perugino, Raphael and 
Lo Spagno, of the Nativity, but is also treated 
with untold magnificence by itself. Don Lorenzo 
Monaco, a Camaldolese monk, has painted this 
subject with so interior a spirit that we know 
not how any one can see the aged king on his 
knees, and peering with such rapturous adora- 
tion into the eyes of the Divine Infant, as if 
there he saw Heaven and the beatific vision, 
without recognizing, acknowledging the Incar- 
nation. Lionardo da Vinci lays the scene in a 
beautiful meadow : the blessed virgin with the 
Infant on her knees, under the blue skies ; and 
troops of attendants follow the Three Kings. 
The gorgeousness of this array is made inde- 
scribably beautiful by the spirit of gladness 
which pervades the whole, and we feel, instinct- 
ively, how amiable were all the manifestations 
of Our Lord to his creatures. But another 
picture gives us the loveliness of the manifesta- 
tion and the grandeur of the circumstances with 
more of the mystery ; and this is by Gentile da 
Fabriano, in the Belle Arti of Florence. The 
hall in which this hangs may well be called the 
vestibule of Paradise, so transcendently do its 



52 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

subjects treat of heavenly things. At the side 
of this Adoration of the Kings, by Fabriano, 
hangs Perugino's Assumption of the Blessed 
Virgin contemplated by "the four ambrosial 
saints," as they are called, because their very 
aspect breathes of the ambrosial air of Paradise ; 
while at the end of this gallery is Fra Angelico's 
Last Judgment, of which the side representing 
the good who have received a favorable sentence 
and are met by their guardian angels to be con- 
ducted to Heaven, is, perhaps, the most blissful 
picture in the world. It is among such sur- 
roundings that we see, to-day, the Adoration or 
Epiphany picture by Fabriano. Here we have 
the Virgin Mother and the Infant, and Saint 
Joseph at the door of the Cave. Within we see 
the manger, the ox and the ass. Before this 
humble group come the Three Kings, the most 
ancient on both knees, his crown at his side, 
while he kisses the foot of the Babe, who touches 
with His little hand the head of the old man as 
if to bless him. The action of the two other 
kings is full of majesty and devotion, and the 
attendant of one is loosing the latchet of his 
sandal as if he were to make his adoration with 
bared feet. In the distance is seen a train 
wending toward Jerusalem to give the first part 
of the story, w 7 hile another train issuing from its 
gates swells the cortege of the Three Kings. On 
he predella are seen the Nativity and the Flight 



THE EPIPHANY. 53 

into Egypt. The whole is one poeon of praise 
and adoration. But we must not omit the grand 
picture of the Adoration at Cologne by Stephen 
Lothener, of Constance —one of the glories of the 
grand Cathedral. We must remember that the 
relics of the Three Kings are venerated at 
Cologne, and this will explain the picture, 
which is not a literal representation of the event, 
but a glorified one. Here the Virgin Mother, 
crowned, her blue mantle lined with ermine, 
sits enthroned, her Child on her knees, her 
hand under His foot as a token of obedience, of 
fealty. On either side are the Three Kings and 
their attendants. The picture is painted on five 
panels. The Adoration occupies the central one. 
On the side panels are seen the two great pro- 
tectors of the city of Cologne : Saint Gereon in 
armor and surcoat with his men at arms; on the 
left, Saint Ursula with her spouse the British 
prince, Conan, the Bishops and attendants. On 
the extreme wings is represented the Annuncia- 
tion. But even wdth these magnificent repre- 
sentations in mind, we turn with a respect and 
a tenderness of spirit akin to veneration, to the 
mosaic of the Adoration on the triumphal arch 
of the fifth century in Saint Mary Major; and 
still more to a painting of the first or at most 
second century on the walls of the catacombs of 
SS. Nereo, Achilleo and Domitilla, where the 
same Virgin Mother is represented seated, her 



54 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

Divine Child on her knees and the Magi hasten- 
ing towards her with their gifts. Not even the 
ravages of so many centuries can take from this 
work of the primitive Church the charm which 
belongs to this lovely subject of Christian art. 

Some of the most interesting circumstances 
attending the Feast of the Epiphany in Eome 
are connected with the College of the Propa- 
ganda. There we see all nations represented as 
adorers of the Infant Saviour, and hear all lan- 
guages used in His praise. The altar-piece in 
their chapel is an Adoration, the traditional star 
assuming supernatural splendor as it stands 
over the humble birthplace of the King of 
kings. 

A stranger in Eome is sure to be surprised at 
seeing, on the Eve of the Epiphany, the erection 
of numberless booths on the Piazza Navona, on 
one side of which stands the beautiful Church of 
Saint Agnes; still more surpiised to hear that 
the Epiphany, not Christmas, is the gift-day in 
Eome. All at once, like so many other customs 
at this fountain-head of Christian traditions, 
the significance and the fitness of this dawn 
upon the mind. The shepherds came to Beth- 
lehem in haste, from watching their flocks by 
night on the hillsides ; and what gifts had they 
to bring? The Magi came from afar, prepared, 
forewarned that they were to present themselves 
before a King who could claim their fealty. 



THE EPIPHANY. 55 

Their gifts were, therefore, timely and even 
expected. We Americans, so lavish in our gener- 
osities, may well imitate the Three Kings in our 
gifts, not only to our own families and friends, 
but to those who, having given themselves to 
God, may well claim our aid in their works of 
piety and of mercy. With all our generosity 
we may yet learn something of the duties of 
Christians from the Three Kings, who, first 
adoring, opened their treasures and gave their 
gold, their precious myrrh and sweet frankin- 
cense, to the Babe of Bethlehem. 

The pomp and glory of the Epiphany have 
passed before us like a vision. With what tran- 
quility the days wear on, and just before the 
forty days are over the Cave is once more deso- 
late ! The Bethlehemites — have they been alto- 
gether blind ? Do they now miss some mysterious 
grace in the air, some unwonted security of 
their small city? The Holy Family depart as 
noiselessly as they came, and, instead of a mal- 
ediction on those who refused them shelter, 
they have left a blessing, how great, Bethlehem 
never knew, not even when her infants were 
torn from her bosom. And now we stand with 
Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the Temple, with 
Simeon and with Anne. We see Simeon take 
the child in his arms, and we hear his Nunc 
dimittis. We see "the old man carry the Child, " 
but we know that "the Child governs the old 



56 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

ruan." It is the placid ending of forty wonder- 
ful days, by the purification of one who was 
born without sin, and the presentation in the 
Temple of two Turtle-doves as the price of re- 
demption for Him whose single drop of blood 
could redeem the world ! How joyously the 
Church takes up the theme ! How sweetly she 
rings her changes on its beautiful traditions. 
How she weaves her tapestries from the few 
golden threads of the Gospel narrative ! How she 
lights her thousands and thousands of tapers in 
honor of Him who is already "a light to the rev- 
elation of the Gentiles!" How she leads her 
processions with Simeon's canticle on their lips, 
as they defile in shining columns through the 
naves of her Old World cathedrals, basilicas, 
and her churches throughout the world, or 
wherever her traditions are known, are kept, 
are loved by the people, — loved so well that 
they can lose one hour from their traffic, their 
households, to join with Jesus, Mary and Jo- 
seph, with Simeon and with Anne, in the Nunc 
dimittis, with its refrain, "A light to the reve- 
lation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy 
people Israel !" Time to ponder a moment on 
that first of Mary's sorrows, the prophecy of 
Simeon: * 'And thine own soul a sword shall 
pierce !" Beautiful Virgin Mother, kneeling in 
ecstasy over thy new-born Babe in a manger, 
to hear, in the midst of the Temple, the prophecy 



THE EPIPHANY. 57 

of thy dolors ! Let us not only join the glad pro- 
cession of the morning, but let us wait upon 
this Virgin in the first hours of her first sorrow, 
and at evening-song join not only in her 
Magnificat, but in the 



which the Church entones every evening in her 
honor. And if Eaphael's tender picture of the 
Purification and the Presentation is at our 
hand, let us take this spring-flower of the sec- 
ond of February, the spring-flower, too, of his 
lovely and pious genius, and set it before our 
eyes as the loveliest tribute ever paid to her on 
the double Feast of the Presentation and Purifi- 
cation. 



THE EARLY MADONNAS- 



IV- 

Wonderful ! Counselor ! God the Almighty ! 
Father of the world to come ! Prince of Peace ! 
Child that is born for us ! Son that is given to 
us ! Star that has risen out of Jacob ! Without 
beginning and without end, and yet a Child of 
days! How shall we represent this mystery? 
How shall we declare it unto the generations ? 
To the unlearned as to the wise, to the little ones 
as to those who have grown old in understand- 
ing? 

This has been the question put before the 
Christian artist for these eighteen centuries — the 
representation of the union of God with man, the 
Infinite with the finite, the Creator with the 
creature, the Eternal with perishing mortality — 
in a word, the Incarnation. Not for one moment 

58 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 59 

can these conditions be overlooked in the repre- 
sentation of Our Lord, whether as the infant in 
the manger, the Child Jesus in the temple, or 
the Eedeemer on His Cross. From first to last, 
the Incarnation is to be the dominant thought 
of the artist, if he is to meet the need of Christ- 
endom or to fulfill its ideal. Skill there may be, 
beauty of forms, loveliness of types; but this 
one essential ideal lacking, all is lacking. Skill 
there may not be, forms, types may be crude; 
but this one essential ideal pervading, informing 
these imperfect types, and the task has been ac- 
complished. It is upon the Incarnation, as a 
fact, that the hold of the Christian artist must 
be taken, if he is to be, not the mere decorator 
submitting himself to the fashion of his period, 
but the great instructor of his own and of suc- 
ceeding generations, the standard-bearer of the 
God-man ! 

To begin with the first Christian artist and the 
first Madonna,we must take Saint Luke the Ev- 
angelist; Saint Luke, the "fellow-laborer" of 
Saint Paul, when the apostle lived with his jail- 
or on the corner of the Via in Lata, Kome, as 
he mentions in his Epistle to Philemon. 

There is a subject of Christian art in connec- 
tion with Saint Luke which would take us back to 
the three years' ministry of Our Lord ; but this is 
too wide a field to explore with our present design 
in mind, and we begin, therefore, with Sain 



60 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

Luke, as the painter of Madonnas ; and go to the 
prison of Saint Paul, on the Corso and Via in 
Lata, as the spot where hung for centuries one 
of the Madonnas painted by Saint Luke, no 
doubt at the instance of Saint Paul himself. Se- 
ven of these Madonnas, according to tradition, 
were painted by the Evangelist, and one of these 
is the Madonna which was carried in procession 
by Saint Gregory the Great during the visitation 
of Eome by the plague, between the death of 
Pelagius II., who fell a victim to the pestilence, 
and the accession of Gregory himself, in 590, to 
the pontifical throne. The marvelous circum- 
stances attending this procession are thus given 
by the writers of that day. For the first time, 
monks and nun^ were called from their cells to 
join in the procession, as well as citizens of all 
ranks, women, children, even babes carried in 
the arms of their mothers ; all in penitential garb 
and with bare feet, from the pope to the child ; and 
while they chanted penitential psalms, hymns, 
litanies, they carried aloft, as a banner, the Ma- 
donna of Saint Luke, taken, each time the pro- 
cession was made, from Santa Maria Maggiore, 
and returned to it at its close. It was while 
making the procession on the last, or, as we may 
presume, the third day, that the eyes of Gregory 
were opened to see, on the summit of Hadrian's 
tomb beside the Tiber, which is only a short 
distance from Saint Peter's on the Vatican, an 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 61 

archangel standing, sheathing his sword as if 
returning from the combat ; and the plague had 
ceased ! From that day to this the tradition con- 
cerning this picture has been held as valid, 
without a break in the testimony of its existence 
or the place where it has been honored ; so that 
the naming of Saint Luke as the first painter of 
Madonnas, is no myth but one of those estab- 
lished facts taken note of in every history of art 
at the present time. Those who visit the 
Borghese Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore, still 
look up to see, above the exquisite altar of 
lapis lazuli, this Madonna by Saint Luke ; the 
precious lapis lazuli keeping the hue of the 
Virgin Mother's mantle above. 

But while Saint Luke was in Borne with Saint 
Peter and Saint Paul, one of the mothers of the 
Infant Church was living in the house of her 
son on the Vicus Patricks, or Way of the 
Patricians. This son was no other than Pudens 
the Senator, who sent greetings by Saint Paul 
to Saint Timothy, and the mother was that Pris- 
cilla, who was one of the first fruits in Borne of 
the preaching of Saint Peter. She did not live 
to be shocked by the double martyrdom of the 
Church, in the persons of Saint Peter and Saint 
Paul, on one day. With the absolution of 
Saint Peter, and under his apostolic benediction, 
she fell asleep in the Lord, and was carried to 
the cemetery of her family on the Salarian 



6'2 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

Way. Around her, in the course of the genera- 
tions, were gathered her son, Pudens, and his 
wife Claudia, their son and his son's sons and 
daughters, Novatius and Timotheus and Puden- 
tiana and Praxedes. But long before all this 
had come to pass, Pudens and his wife Claudia 
carried out the Roman idea of a sepulchre for 
their mother, Priscilla; and not only the 
Eoman, but the Christian idea. What the 
Roman idea was it is easy to know from unnum- 
bered pictures of the interiors of their tombs ; 
and the idea of the Christians of that day was 
to use the same beautiful masonry, the same 
beautiful arts of design, to express a Christian 
burial and a Christian hope of the Resurrection. 
In this instance, the opulence of a senatorial 
family allowed to Pudens and his wife, and those 
who were their immediate successors in the 
pious work, the privilege of expressing Christian 
ideas in the most perfect manner. We can also 
understand how a certain filial sentiment sug- 
gested a series of pictures which should under- 
lie all other 'decorations as embodying that 
essential element of Christian belief — the Incar- 
nation. Around this true "Mother in Israel," 
who had brooded under her wings the callow 
converts to the new faith, would naturally clus- 
ter those scenes in the Maternity of Mary and 
the Childhood of Our Lord, which had been 
described to them, we must believe, not only by 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 63 

the pen of Saint Luke in his Gospel, but by the 
1 ' word of mouth" of this same Luke, who received 
them from the Virgin Mother herself, and by 
this oral narrative had fixed them in their minds 
as living realities, gracious and most lovely 
expressions of all that most charms us in the 
story of the Incarnation. Never, even in the 
thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, did 
the apse of any cathedral put forth more blos- 
soms in honor of the Maternity of Mary, than 
did this subterranean resting-place of the Chris- 
tian mother of the Christian Pudens during the 
very lifetime of the Apostles. It is one of the 
proofs of the fidelity of artists to the traditions 
of Faith that, although this cemetery or cata- 
comb was closed at an early date, the same sub- 
jects, in the same order, with the same dom- 
inant ideas, continued to be in use for the dec- 
oration of the sanctuary. 

First in this order is the Annunciation. In 
the centre of the ceiling, with the beautiful 
repose of manner which belonged to the best 
statues of the best Eoman period, sits the young 
Virgin of the House of David. The robe, with 
its classic folds, is gathered simply under the 
virginal cincture ; on her head is the veil which, 
as in Saint Luke's Madonnas, droops modestly 
on the forehead ; one hand still rests on the arm 
of her chair, the other is raised slightly, as if 
with surprise at the message of the angel. Be- 



64 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

fore her stands the Archangel Gabriel, one hand 
on the full drapery which envelopes him, the 
other extended towards Mary, so as to express 
all the earnestness of his celestial announce- 
ment, and the countenances of both full of a 
sweetness never to be exceeded. This group is 
divided from the area of the ceiling by a circle 
of gem-like decorations somewhat after the man- 
ner of the Cosmati mosaics, so much in use many 
centuries later. From this highly decorative 
circle are suspended the classic garlands still 
used in architecture ; from their points of 
attachment to the gemmed circle fall pendants, 
painted to resemble gemmed crosses; while in 
the four corners of this square ceiling, each cut 
off by the gemmed segment of a circle, is a dove 
on the wing; not, we may believe, merely as the 
dove so familiar to Rome, or even the dove used 
to represent Christian souls in the early Christian 
art, but as the Dove of the Holy Spirit. One 
can see at a glance that this is no rude style of 
decoration, but that it agrees, perfectly, with the 
classic taste shown in the central group.* 

Still more [remarkably, however, is the veri- 
table Madonna next in order, representing the 
Virgin Mother with her Divine Child in her 
arm's, the Child turning from His Mother's 



*To this day these classic garlands, filled in with the choicest 
flowers, are suspended around the confessions of the great 
martyrs in Rome on their feast-days, especially around that of 
Saint Peter in the Vatican. 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 65 

breast toward the spectator with all the grace 
of one of BaphaeFs most charming infants. 
Beside them stands the Prophet Isaias, pointing 
to the star over the head of the Mother and 
Child, as if to draw attention to that unwilling 
prophecy of Balaam, 

"a star shall ARISE OUT OF JACOB."* 
The identity of Isaias is proved by other repre- 
sentations of the same subject in other cata- 
combs, in which a saw, the symbol of Isaias, or 
the instrument of his martyrdom, is given. 
De Bossi does not hesitate to say that this Ma- 
donna is the most ancient which has been dis- 
covered in the catacombs. He invites us to 
compare the design, the modeling, the general 
style of this painting, with the decoration of 
the pagan tombs discovered upon the Latin 
Way in 1858, and attributed by all antiquaries 
to the time of the Antonines. Vivet, in the 
"Journal des Savants," 1866, p. 96, speaks thus 
of the Madonna of Saint Priscilla: " There is 
such suppleness, such suavity in the model- 
ing, that, without offense to Correggio, we 
may say that it would do him honor." This 
picture was painted in the most ancient part of 
the catacomb of Saint Priscilla, close to the 
famous Greek chapel, the masonry of which 
proves its antiquity, while its inscriptions 



* Numbers xxiv., 17. 



66 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

prove Greek to have been the first prevailing 
language of the Church. In another part of 
this cemetery, but belonging to a later time, 
probably soon after the death of Saint Puden- 
tiana, is painted on one side of the arched space 
of the principal tomb a picture of Saint Puden- 
tiana, the great gran d-daughter of Saint Priscilla, 
receiving the veil of the consecrated Virgin from 
the hands of Pope Pius I., a. d. 142-57, ac- 
companied by Pastor who wrote the lives of 
the two holy sisters, Pudentiana and Praxedes. 
The middle of the arch is filled by the majestic 
figure of a woman very richly attired as a 
Eoman matron, standing with her arms ex- 
tended in prayer ; and under this type of an 
Orante or praying woman, we can easily believe 
to be represented Saint Priscilla herself. On 
the other side of this arch is a Madonna, not 
veiled, but seated on a throne-chair, holding 
the Divine Infant to her breast while regarding 
attentively the group on the other side of the 
arch. This picture is believed to have been 
painted under the eyes and by the direction of 
Saint Praxedes, who laid her sister, Saint 
Pudentiana, in her tomb in the cemetery of 
Saint Priscilla. 

In proof of the frequency of these representa- 
tions of the childhood of Our Lord, in which His 
mother takes the part of a necessary and import- 
ant personage, we shall not confine ourselves to 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 67 

the cemetery of Saint Priscilla. We find in the 
beautiful cemetery of Saint Domitilla a picture 
to be referred to nearly the same date, and sim- 
ilar to the Madonna we have described, but 
without the veil, and instead of a star a city is 
represented in the background, doubtless Beth- 
lehem, which w r as given in so many of the mo- 
saics of later centuries. On the walls of this 
same cemetery of Saint Domitilla, is also to be 
found an unmistakeable visit of the Magi to 
the Infant Jesus on the lap of His mother; 
dating also, unquestionably, to that part of the 
second century which is close to the apostolic 
time, i.e., during the lifetime of those who were 
the immediate disciples of the Apostles and 
their personal successors. From the arched 
form of the space on which it is seen, it may have 
adorned an arcosolium, or the principal tomb of 
a chamber. The Virgin Mother is seated on a 
throne-chair, the Infant standing on her lap, 
w T hile two figures, advancing swiftly toward her, 
are eagerly presenting their gifts. This subject 
is treated, still again, in the same catacomb, and 
in this last picture the three traditional Magi 
appear. In neither representation is the subject 
to be misunderstood, while in both there is a 
dramatic action which has not been kept, always, 
in succeeding times. 

Examples of these subjects, and approximat- 
ing to the same dates, can be quoted from nearly 



68 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

all the catacombs. In the catacomb of Saint 
Agnes is a Madonna for an altar piece, repre- 
senting her with all the dignity of a queen, 
while her Son, past the age of infancy, stands 
before her in very much the same way as he is 
seen to stand on the medals of Our Lady of the 
Sacred Heart ; so much so, that one might take 
the medal for a reproduction of it. This picture 
is evidently of the time of Constantine, as we 
see the monogram of the labarum at each side. 
But there is still another voucher for these 
pictures, an approbation such as only a suc- 
cessor of Saint Peter can give. The tourist who 
lingers before the Arch of Triumph in Saint 
Mary Major, in Eome, has only to look into 
his guide-book to know that its mosaics date 
back to the year 431, and to get a tolerably 
correct list of its subjects. It is, however, to 
the work of Chanoin de Bleser that he should 
turn if he wishes to understand them. There 
is considerable difficulty in studying out these 
ancient mosaics on a gold ground, especially at 
such a height. But very accurate drawings 
have been made from the arch, and these draw- 
ings have been photographed so as to assist the 
traveler in the study of the mosaics from the 
arch itself.* Their value, archaelogically, is 



*The use of a small hand-mirror greatly facilitates such stu- 
dies. There are few tourists who have not nearlv disjointed 
their necks by looking at the ceiling of the Sistine chapel 5 
where a hand mirror would have enabled them to seethe whole 
without extraordinary fatigue. 



THE EAKLY MADONNAS. 69 

not to be exaggerated, especially if we cons der 
why and by whom they were set up before "the 
people of God." The well known Council of 
Ephesus, convened to establish the dogma of 
the Divine Maternity of Mary, was attended 
not by Celestine I. in person, but through his 
representative, Sixtus the Roman, It was to 
commemorate this Council and to honor its 
decision, that Celestine planned the Arch of 
Triumph for Saint Mary Major. He died soon 
after the close of the Council but his successor, 
Sixtus the Eoman, under the title of Sixtus III., 
fully carried out the intentions of his venerated 
predecessor. Moreover, he carried out still 
another wish of Celestine I., viz: to have a 
picture commemorating the Council which es- 
tablished the Divine Maternity of Mary, placed 
in the very catacomb where so many pictures 
had been painted in honor of this dogma, that 
of Saint Priscilla; as if here were to be found 
the pictorial proofs of the belief of Christians 
during the first age of Christianity. It was the 
catacomb of Saint Priscilla which Celestine 
chose for his last resting place, and where he 
was actually laid. Of course, both Celestine 
and Sixtus III. regarded with veneration the 
types delineated in this sacred retreat of the 
early Christians, and it must have been with 
delight that they found an opportunity to place 
them publicly before the eyes of all the faithful. 



70 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

In the middle of the arch, at the very top, is 
a medallion supported by the apostles, SS. 
Peter and Paul, and on the same line as the 
top of the medallion and the heads of the apos- 
tles are the symbols of the four Evangelists. 
Within the medallion is a small altar, upon which 
lies the book with Seven Seals, spoken of by 
Saint John in his Revelation. Above this is a 
small, dark cross, while, back of the altar and 
above it, rises a throne resplendent with jewels, 
and from this throne springs a large and beau- 
tiful cross set with gems. These crosses typify 
the humility and the glory of Our Lord in His 
Incarnation. On each side of the throne, so as 
to form the arms is a medallion, in which is a 
bust representation of the Blessed Virgin. In 
one of these she is alone ; in the other, her Son 
stands before her, as in the altar-piece of the 
catacombs of Saint Agnes. Below the medal- 
lion and the apostles, is this inscription on a 
scroll : 

"XYSTVS EPISCOPUS PLEBI DEl" 

(The Bishop Sixtus to the people of God.) 

At the extreme left, as we face the Arch, is 
depicted the Annunciation. The Virgin Mary 
is seated, not on a throne, but on a low, dec- 
orated stool, attended by two angels. Over her 
head is the Dove of the Holy Spirit, while the 
Archangel Gabriel is seen in the air, flying 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 71 

swiftly towards her, and again at her side, deliv- 
ering his message with great earnestness, and 
which she hears with the liveliest attention. 
The group is full of action. Between this and 
the middle medallion is a representation of the 
temple, and before it stands Zacharias, with 
two angels, who announce to him the birth of 
John the Baptist. On the other side of the 
medallion, under the arches of the temple, is 
depicted the Presentation of Our Lord by the 
Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph, attended by 
angels ; Simeon receives him into his arms, and 
Anne the prophetess is seen advancing towards 
the group with a company of believers. The 
front of the temple is seen at the right, and 
doves flutter on the ground before an angel, 
commemorating the humble offering of two 
young pigeons, made by these chaste spouses in 
behalf of the Word made Man. Below this, on 
the third zone, is represented the coming of the 
wise men to Jerusalem, inquiring where Christ 
should be born. On the second zone of the op- 
posite side, directly below the Annunciation, is 
represented their visit to the new-born Babe, 
who sits on a richly adorned throne, as if by 
His own omnipotence. On one side of the 
throne is the Blessed Virgin, on the other Saint 
Joseph ; over the back of the throne four angelic 
guards look with admiration upon the Infant, 
sitting thus erect, while in the air above shines 



72 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

the star which has guided the wise men, who are 
seen advancing, in regal costume, to offer their 
gifts to the new-born King. Still below this is 
seen the massacre of the Innocents, the mothers 
vainly trying to shield their babes from the sol- 
diers, who are approaching them. On the other 
side of the arch, Our Lord is represented as a 
Child with the doctors of the temple, attended 
by angels, and sought for by Mary and Joseph, 
with all the vivacity which is seen in later ages. 
Below these, filling the narrow base of the arch, 
is seen on one side Jerusalem, on the other 
Bethlehem, and still below, the mystical sheep, 
not ranged horizontally one before another, but 
standing in groups, with a beauty unique in such 
representations. All these pictures are given 
on a ground of gold, beautifully finished on the 
lower edge by a band of mosaic, in the center of 
which is a medallion, upon it the sign of Con- 
stantine's Labarum, and on each side of this the 
A and J2 ; according to Saint John : " I am Alpha 
and Omega, the first and the last. " 

From the year 432, or, at the latest, 440, this 
arch has attested the belief of Christians in the 
Divine Maternity of Mary; and from that time 
there has never failed, in so public a place as 
the Arch of Triumph in Saint Mary Major, pic- 
torial representations of those scenes in the 
childhood of Our Lord which have made the 
fame of so many artists of succeeding times. 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 73 

It would be an endless work to name over the 
representations of Mary on the walls of the cat- 
acombs, on the glass vessels found in them, on 
the walls of churches. There is one, however, 
of the time of Saint Gregory, and in his own 
palace turned into a monastery, which illus- 
trates the sixth century ideas of Our Lady. The 
traveler finds it painted on the surface of an 
irregular niche, looking as if it had been scooped 
out of the wall, because here the Blessed Virgin 

ppeared to Gregory, whose one idea seemed to 

e, to commemorate her visit. 
In the subterranean church Saint Clement, 
Rome, which was closed to mortal eye from 
before the year 900, until opened under Father 
Mullooly in the year 1857, are remarkable 
Madonnas, which show how the Christians of 
the seventh and eighth centuries regarded these 
representations. One is an enthroned Madon- 
na, with every regal attribute. On her lap is 
her Divine Son with His cruciform nimbus, and 
His mother's hand is under His foot in sign of 
fealty. It is called the "Madonna of the 
Niche." Above the niche, in a medallion, is a 
youthful bust picture of Our Lord, with the 
cruciform nimbus. The crumbling plaster of 
the wall still leaves us at the sides of the niche, 
on one hand the head of Saint Catherine of 
Alexandria, on a ground studded with stars, 
and on the other Saint Euphemia, two early 



74 CHRISTMAS- T IDE . 

age martyrs. Both wear crowns in which is a 
cross, both have the round nimbus, and beside 
each is the name running vertically. Below 
these heads, and taking up both spaces beside 
the niche, is given the sacrifice of Isaac by 
Abraham, thus connecting the idea of Redemp- 
tion with the Babe on the lap of Mary. 

On the opposite side of this subterranean 
church is a crucifixion, and, we believe, one of 
the very earliest representations in fresco of 
this scene. Yet it is a crucifixion corresponding 
literally to the type of the crucifixion in suc- 
ceeding centuries, unless in having the four 
nails instead of three. We may also remark, 
that the horizontal position of the arms is in 
perfect accordance with the highest authorities 
in this matter. There is a gross dereliction 
from the true type in many of the crucifixes in 
use at present, which has been stigmatized, by 
exact theologians, as a shadow left by the Jan- 
senists on the art of our time. In these cruci- 
fixes, the arms are often held almost vertically, 
as if Our Lord's weight dragged on the nails, 
doing violence to the idea of a voluntary sacri- 
fice, and degrading the figure of the Redeemer 
by a resemblance to the writhing, struggling 
figure of the bad thief ! Exactly contrary to all 
^his, is the figure of Our Lord on His Cross in 
the subterranean church of San Clemente, giv- 
ing the ideas of the ninth (or more probably the 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 75 

seventh and eighth), century Christians. In 
this picture, as we have said, the arms are 
nearly horizontal, the head is inclined quietly 
to one side and raised a little, as if giving forth . 
that agonized cry : " My God, my God, why hast 
Thou forsaken me ! " 

On the right side of the Cross stands Mary in 
veil, mantle and nimbus, stretching both hands 
towards her Son in an agony of grief ; on the 
left side is Saint John, young, beardless, with a 
nimbus, one hand raised beseechingly to his 
Lord, the other holding a roll, as an Evangelist. 
At the sijde of this picture is represented the 
Holy Sepulchre, with an angel by the door, ad- 
dressing the two holy women as they approach 
it. Below this is the descent of Our Lord into 
Limbo, where he raises from his recumbent 
position the first man, Adam, who lays one hand 
on his breast in token of gratitude, while Eve 
stretches forth both hands to her Lord in sup- 
plication. Still below this is seen the upper 
part of the marriage in Cana of Galilee, and we 
may say that in no picture, ancient or modern, 
has the type of Our Lord been more beautifully 
preserved. The cruciform nimbus crowns the 
benign head, and the eyes are inclined down- 
ward with an expression like that which Lio- 
nardo gave to Our Lord in His Last Supper. 
Close beside Our Lord stands Our Lady, veiled, 
with her nimbus, holding up her hands in won- 



76 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

der and admiration ; at her side is Saint John, 
the spaces being filled with heads and figures on 
an architectural background. The falling plas- 
ter has deprived us of the lower part of this 
beautiful picture. 

But perhaps the Madonna, which is the most 
of a surprise in this subterranean church, closed 
since the ninth century, is an Assumption ! An 
Assumption, too, a good deal after Titian's own 
heart ; full of joy, of exultation, of gesture, and 
even of awe ! In the middle of the foreground 
stands an empty tomb ; above this appears the 
Blessed Virgin ascending in the air, her arms 
extended, and her face turned towards her 
Divine Son, who is seen above her in an oval 
glory up-borne by angels, the background sown 
with stars. Our Lord is sitting on a rainbow 
in one hand a book, the other extended as if to 
welcome His mother. Below, on the same line 
as the empty tomb, are the Apostles; some fol- 
lowing the receding figure of the Blessed Virgin 
. with their eyes, others throwing her a last fare- 
well with uplifted hands, others hiding their 
eyes as if they could not see her taken away 
from them, even to go to Heaven ! At the ex- 
treme left side of the group is a figure looking 
out from the picture, named Saint Vitus, in let- 
ters which stand vertically below each other. 
His head is shaven like that of a monk, and is 
crowned with a nimbus. In his hand he carries 



THE EARLY MADODNNAS. 77 

a small cross. On the extreme right is another 
figure, looking out of the picture also, but with 
a square nimbus, with a small cross at the top, 
around his shaven head, showing that this per- 
son was still living when the picture was 
painted. He wears a pallium, marked with 
black crosses, and carries a book in his hand. 
On each side of the square nimbus are the letters 
of an inscription which reads thus: " That this 
picture may outshine the rest in beauty, behold 
the priest, Leo, has studied to compose it, "with 
the name, "Leo, Pope of Borne." Father 
Mullooly says it is not easy to decide whether 
Leo III. or Leo IV. is intended. If Leo III., the 
picture must have been painted before 795 ; if 
Leo IV., before 847. In either case it is a date 
sufficiently ancient to cause one to withhold any 
animadversion on the propriety of painting the 
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. 

We could go on from this date through the 
tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, 
fifteenth, sixteenth centuries, quoting Madon- 
nas, and comparing them with the early Madon- 
nas. But this would take us far beyond the limits 
proper for this article. 

We almost promise to do this in the future, 
however ; for never until within the last twenty 
years could this have been done satisfactorily. 
The opening of the catacombs in connection with 
the Arch of Triumph in Saint Mary Major has 



78 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 



5 



given an entirely new aspect to the subject of 
Madonnas. Only a fewdays ago we took up a 
history of art — one considered of undoubted au- 
thority — in which it was stated that, while Our 
Lord is often seen standing on the knee of His 
Mother in early Christian art, He is never seen 
in her arms ; while we have to-day, in the ear- 
liest picture of the Madonna as yet found in the 
catacombs, and that before the year 100, a pic- 
ture of the Infant Jesus turning from the breast 
of His Mother as she holds Him in her arms ! 
The ignorance of the past is to be excused; but 
in a few years such a statement will invalidate 
any author's testimony. 

As we have said, these discoveries of Madon- 
nas in the catacombs, are invaluable archaeo- 
logically, but this is not all. These discoveries 
are invaluable as confirmations of Christian 
faith. How many Catholics have a lingering 
trust of so many Madonnas, as if their number 
and variety implied some excess of devotion to 
Our Lady ! How many Protestants, also, who 
have a sincere admiration for this Virgin 
Mother, 

" Our tainted nature's solitary boast." 

according to Wordsworth, are still a little afraid 
of some of the Madonnas ; for instance, those 
representing her Assumption ! For both of 
these classes, more numerous than many are 



THE EARLY MADONNAS. 79 

aware, these pictures of the early Madonnas 
contain both encouragement and instruction. 
To know that our veneration for the Blessed 
Virgin is the very same as that cherished for her 
by Christians in the first century down to those 
of the ninth, is a confirmation of pious confi- 
dence too sweet, too precious, to be overlooked 
or forgotten. Neither is there any one so fer- 
vent that his piety is not quickened by such 
evidences of tbe devotion of those far-away ages 
towards the Incarnate Word and his Virgin 
Mother. 



RAPHAEL'S MADONNAS. 



V. 

Madonna ! Loveliest word in the loveliest of 
all languages spoken by human tongue ! Ma- 
donna ! word fragrant as breezes from the spice 
islands of India, with all that moves the affec- 
tions of mortal hearts, all that stirs them to de- 
votion ! Madonna ! The keynote of dogma, the 
cypher by which we spell out the mystery of the 
Incarnation. Madonna ! The inspiration of the 
Christian poet, as thou hast been of the masters 
of Christian song, the Cecilians of the ages ; but 
above all, the inspiration of Christian artists, 
from the unknown decorators of the catacombs 
of Santa Priscilla and Santa Domitilla, and the 
Arch of Triumph in Santa Maria Maggiore, to 
Giunta of Pisa, Guido, Duccio, Simone Memmi, 
Ansano and Sodoma of Siena, Cimabue and Giot- 

80 



Raphael's madonnas. 81 

to of Florence, Jacopo Turrita the Franciscan 
in his mosaics, NicoloPisanoin marble, Andrea 
Pisano in bronze, down to the richest efflores- 
cence of Christian art under Ghiberti, Donatello, 
Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo da Vinci, Luini,Fra 
Angelico, Perugino, Gentile da Fabriano, Giov- 
anni Santi, Lucca della Eobbia, Michael Angelo, 
to Eaphael himself ; as if to prove that art, above 
poetry, or music, or any outcome of human 
genius, owes its inspiration to those dogmas of 
which the Incarnation is the life and the very 
soul. 

Yet, if we must choose, from all this galaxy 
of radiant names, one which may stand as an 
exponent of the whole, the swing of whose pen- 
dulum describes the entire arc of beauty, of ten- 
derness, of sublimity, we must undoubtedly 
choose that of Eaphael Santi of Urbino. To 
show how this transcendent gift was sheathed 
in the giving, let us go back to the home in 
which Eaphael was born, beyond question, " in 
a happy hour," although on Good Friday, 1483 ; 
the home of his father, Giovanni Santi, and his 
mother, Magia, and still to be seen on the 
Strada del Monte in Urbino. 

As one would say, perhaps, differing in noth- 
ing from a hundred homes in its neighborhood, 
we no sooner throw the light of a strong re- 
flector upon this home on the Strada del Monte, 
than we find it a nest to which God has confided 



82 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

the genius which is to delight not only Italy, but 
the world; not only delight, but make hap- 
pier and better; who is to be its joy and con- 
solation, and the spur to its devotion ; not only 
in cathedrals and chapels, not only in palaces, 
but in the fairest and humblest home of Chris- 
tendom. He is to be, this God-bestowed genius — 
for God alone confers genius since it is confined 
to no rank, no family, can be secured by no 
painstaking and by no education — the possession 
of entire humanity ; it has been given to him to 
touch every spring of human feeling, sentiment, 
emotion, aspiration ; and the nest where he was 
born, was nourished, was fledged, was this 
Christian home on the Strada del Monte, Come 
w 7 ith me to it ; knock at the modest door ; enter 
the spacious but unostentatious apartments. 
Still better, meet there the pious, affable poet 
and painter, Giovanni Santi ; his lovely, gentle, 
pious wife, and the angelic boy to whom they 
gave, so fitly, the name of Eaphael ; from his 
very birth an angel of beauty, of amiability, of 
tender piety. But the atmosphere of this home, 
how shall we describe it? An atmosphere of 
peace, for it was an atmosphere in which Gio- 
vanni Santi could paint Madonnas. An atmos- 
phere of love, of the sweetest domestic happi- 
ness, for here it was that Giovanni Santi found 
models for his holy families in Magia, the 
grandmother Elizabetta, and the angelic babe 



83 

Raphael. An atmosphere of devotion, for here 
it was that visions of celestial adoration came 
to Giovanni, and he became known over Italy 
as s( a painter of the Madonna." The favorite 
pastime of the little Eaphael was to play with 
the brushes and colors in his father's studio, 
and his first recollections went back to some 
Madonna, on his father's easel, for which he 
had heard expressed some extraordinary praise. 
The life led by this family of the Strada del 
Monte was not only a good Christian life, but 
an ideal Christian life. Saints and angels, 
their feasts, their patronage, came into the 
daily routine of this household, which was not 
content with the crumbs dropped from the 
Christian table, but sat as guests at the board 
and partook of its heavenly delights. That 
charm which invests the dogmas, the practices 
of a Christian's year, and a Christian's week, 
and a Christian's day and even hour; which 
makes the sound of the Angelus bell so dear, the 
recitation of the Angelus so consoling; which 
makes the Rosary a veritable string of medita- 
tions as beautiful, as poetic, as the roses of 
Persia; which makes the Vespers and the Ben- 
ediction, though not of obligation, so sweet that 
some joy seems to have dropped out of the Sun- 
day or the festival when we have missed them ; 
this charm was felt, and understood, and fully 
valued by the fam ily of the Santi, on the Strada 



84 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

del Monte. There was an ideal element in this 
household, in every member of it; there was a 
tenderness of culture, and a gentleness of affec- 
tion, which made piety something more than an 
obligation — a most sweet attraction. 

Nothing lovelier as a merely human house- 
hold was ever known on earth than this house- 
hold on the Strada del Monte in Urbino, but this 
did not save it from sorrow. Our Raphael was 
only seven years old when his grandmother, 
Elizabetta died — and someone has said that no 
household is perfect without a grandmother— 
and only four days after, his mother, Magia, was 
snatched by death from the home which might 
be called the ideal home of a Christian family. 
Then it was. that the boy Raphael became his 
father's constant companion, accompanied him 
to the cities where he was called to paint, and 
again stood for his father's Saint John Baptists 
and Saint Raphaels. But this was only for 
three years. At eleven years of age Raphael 
was an orphan. No one can say what was the 
effect of all this upon the imagination of the 
wonderful boy to whom God had given what God 
alone can bestow, not only life, but the genius 
which vivifies the lives of others. It was to his 
mother's brother, Simone Ciarla, that Provi- 
dence kindly confided the noble and delicate 
nature and the budding genius of Raphael. Of 
his gifts and his predilection there could be no 



Raphael's madonnas. 85 

question, and he was placed under that master, 
Perugino, who had been called by Giovanni 
Santi himself, "a divine painter." In the stu- 
dio of Perugino, all the most sacred traditions 
of Umbria were faithfully nourished in the soul 
of his pupil, and thus the aroma of those first 
tender years on the Strada del Monte was never 
dissipated. One of the first fruits of this train- 
ing of the heart, the imagination, the ascetic as 
well as the aesthetic capacity of this favored 
soul, was the Espousals. It was the spring 
flower of Raphael's genius ; not only because of 
his youth, for he was not yet twenty-two years 
old, but by reason of its virginal tenderness, mod- 
esty, reserved grace, and even by the beauty of 
its coloring, which has always been described as 
that of the first blooms of spring, How can we 
pass over the story in which the ''Espousals," of 
Raphael, as well as of Perugino, had its root ? 
The ring of the Blessed Virgin, her marriage 
ring, brought to Perugia, how it was secured for 
that city by the devotion of the great captain, 
Jaeroic penitent, chivalrous knight of the Blessed 
Virgin, Braccio Baglione, and how, from this, 
sprang that lily of Christian art, the Espousals 
of Our Lady; all this must be read on the truly 
Catholic pages of M. Rio in his work UArt 
Chretien, if we would see it in its fullness of 
beauty ; and the picture itself, in its reproduc- 
tions, why has it not a place among marriage 



86 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

gifts to our lovely Catholic brides, as well a& 
silver, or laces, or even pearls ? 

Soon after this our Eaphael makes his first 
visit to Florence, and how must he not have 
charmed the hearts of those Catholic Floren 
tines of the sixteenth century, to whose favor 
genius was the passport which wealth is to ours ? 
And Florence? For the first time since his 
infancy, literally his seventh year, domestic 
life, under its most delightful aspects, sur- 
rounded Eapael. The beautiful Florentine 
mothers, the beautiful Florentine children, the 
charms of affectionate intercourse, how they 
recalled the gentle Magia, the ideal Giovanni, 
the grandmother Elizabetta, the little sister he 
remembered to have seen, early as she died, in 
their arms? The households of Florence were 
thus lighted up by the far-off radiance of the 
dearly cherished memory of the home on the 
Strada del Monte. It was during this visit that 
he painted for his friend Lorenzo Nasi and his 
young bride, the lovely Madonna Cardellino, 
or the Madonna of the goldfinch. In the midst 
of a far-spreading landscape sits this maiden 
Mother; in the hand dropped at her side, that 
book of prophecies which Mary alone could then 
fully understand ; botween her knees leans the 
Divine Child, as if supported by them, and the 
little Saint John brings him a goldfinch, with a 
look of such love as onlv the Child Jesus could 



RAPHiEl/s MADONNAS. 87 

inspire; while the Infant Emmanuel lays His 
baby hand on the head of the little goldfinch 
with the majesty of the Creator blessing His 
creature. See how the human and the Divine 
are wedded in this Infant of days, and tell, if 
you can, whence, but from the Incarnation, as 
the web and woof of Raphael's thought, and fancy, 
and imagination, came this wonderful revela- 
tion to the young man of twenty-two. 

While in Florence, with a touch as light as 
the brush of a humming-bird's wing past the 
flower, came the Madonna Gran Duca; so ten- 
derly serious, so sw 7 eetly meditative, the eyes 
of the mother entranced by the Infant on her 
arm. A tbin tissue of white is drawn across 
the hair and forehead, and you can see that the 
mantle rests on the head. The Child on His 
mother's arm, one hand on her shoulder, the 
other on the drapery of her bosom, as if He 
said, "Here is my nourishment," looks out from 
the picture as the Child whose "name is Won- 
derful, the Counsellor," fed by a drop of milk 
from the breast of a Virgin Mother. The pathos, 
the tranquility, the sublimity of this Madonna 
Gran Duca, whence had it root, if not in that 
dogma of the Incarnation upon which Raphael 
had fed from the moment of his birth? 

The short visit to Florence was over, and 
there was a return to Perugia; a short sojourn, 
but full of work and full of patronage. It 



88 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

was the patronage of Atalanta Baglione, a sis- 
ter of Braccio, which he took with him to 
Florence on his second visit ; an order for that 
" Entombment " which is one of the treasures of 
the Palazzo Borghese in Borne. But once in 
Florence, Madonnas sprang into life as flowers 
under the skies of April. They are scarcely to 
be counted, still less described, for the Floren- 
tine families did not covet realistic portraits sa 
much for their homes, as we of to-day ; they 
coveted rather that ideal presence, that image of 
celestial benignity, which goes under the name 
of Madonna; the sinless Mother and the Divine 
Child. Who ever heard of a Florentine of the 
fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries^ 
saying there were " too many Madonnas ? " Who 
ever heard of a Florentine, whether prince or 
contadino, asking for "more expression " in the 
serenely beautiful face of the Mother Immacu- 
late looking down upon him from the altar of 
his parish church, or of his private chapel? 
Among the exquisite conceptions of this happy 
period of Baphael'slife,is that " Madonna of the 
Field," which is similar to the " Madonna of the 
Goldfinch"; also the Madonna del Passeggio,ixi 
which Our Lady is walking with her Son through 
beautiful meadows, where they are met by the 
little Saint John with his reed cross, who kisses 
the young Jesus with the most ardent affection, 
while in the distance is seen Saint Joseph. 



Raphael's madonnas. 89 

These Madonnas, all with a most charming land- 
scape as a background, may be said to find their 
perfection in La Bella Giardiniera. Everything 
graceful in the others we have mentioned is seen 
in this, with all the beauty of scenery ; but there 
is a perfection in the Mother's beauty, in the 
sw r eetness of her maternity, also in the majesty 
of the Divine Infant, and in the adoration of 
Saint John, w r hich surpasses any similar expres- 
sion in his former pictures, and shows how 
perseveringly Raphael endeavored to realize his 
ideal. 

There is another picture belonging to this 
time, now to be found in Munich, called " The 
Whispering Madonna." The Mother is standing 
as gracefully as a rose bending backward on its 
stalk, to support her Child, pressing his face 
close to her own. There is a sweet smile on her 

lips, and the Child? Have you never seen 

a mother holding her lips to her child's ear and 
whispering — whispering, oh, how softly and 
sweetly ? And have you not seen the infant's 
face change, smile, look grave, smile again, all 
as if it understood every word said in its ear? 
This is what you see in this " Whispering Ma- 
donna." But this is not all. You realize, as per- 
haps never before, unless in reading some page 
from Father Faber, the blissful familiarity in 
which Our Lady lived with her Divine Babe. 
There was a veneration, oh, how tender, for the 



90 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

least fold of linen touching His sacred Body ; 
there was an adoration, oh, how absolute, for His 
Divine Person; at the same time Mary handled, 
caressed, soothed the charming Humanity of the 
little Incarnate One with all a mother's fond- 
ness, all a mother's caresses. There was no tim- 
idity, no reserve. He was, verily, her Son, and 
she was, verily, His Mother ; and never, even be- 
tween Eve and her Innocent children, was there 
ever such an unrestrained affection as between 
the Child Jesus and the Virgin Mother whose 
name was Mary. Furthermore, the picture tells 
us of the understanding by speech and word, by 
ear and hearing, between this Mother and this 
Son. She whispers into the ear of the Divine 
Child, and He understands and listens to her ; 
answers her, too, in the language mothers under- 
stand from their infants. Eaphael's infant 
tongue had lisped the Hail Mary like every 
other child of Catholic Italy, and when he 
painted his " Whispering Madonna," he painted 
it as one who believed that the least accent from 
that mother's lips was heard, was regarded, was 
answered by the son in her arms. It was an Ave 
Maria which he painted under the form of a 
Whispering Madonna. 

There is a touch of youthful enthusiasm, of 
ardent expectation, a laying hold of a great hope, 
in the account given us of the haste with which 
Eaphael responded to a call from Eome ; a call, 



Raphael's madonnas. 91 

too, from no less a person than the Sovereign 
Pontiff, Julius II ; how he left Florence and all 
its attractions, fully taking in the wonderful 
possibilities before him in the Eternal City. As 
he afterwards writes with his characteristic in- 
genuousness to his uncle (whom he always ad- 
dresses in his letter, " dear to me as a father") : 
"Is there any place better than Kome?" Ba- 
phael understood that the patronage was beyond 
that of kings or of governments, and leaving the 
blue mantle of an Enthroned Madonna to be 
painted in by a friend, he hastens to the Vatican, 
to the feet of Julius II. , who was succeeded by 
Leo X., and under both pontiffs executed works 
which draw to the Vatican travelers from the 
entire world. It would be well worth while to 
throw as strong a light upon the Disputa, the 
most wonderful picture ever painted in honor of 
the Blessed Sacrament, as we see thrown, by 
learned commentators and skilled engravers, 
upon the school of Athens. But at this present 
time we are pledged to the Madonnas executed 
by Baphael, in his latest Boman manner, as it 
is called; in reality, the manner into which 
his ideas of Mary, Virgin and Mother, with her 
Divine Son in her arms, were sublimated by the 
ripening of his genius and his devotion to the 
dogma of the Incarnation. 

There was never a time when Baphael was not 
ready to answer a call for a Madonna; never a 



92 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

time when the call did not give him a sense of 
fresh delight. It was a renewing of the early in- 
spirations, of the sweet Umbrian traditions of his 
childhood. The coldest of his critics will say, 
in a matter-of-fact way: " Raphael was never so 
much at home as with his Madonnas." And so 
it was, that all through the grand Eoman period 
of his life, when his genius was ever on the w 7 ing, 
ever on the ascendant, Madonna after Madonna 
flitted in between the great frescoes of the stanzi, 
the loggie, the cartoons for the tapestries, the 
ceilings of churches and villas. Moreover, the 
designs for the ceilings, certainly if mythologi- 
cal, would be given to his pupils to execute ; but 
the Madonnas would be painted by his ow 7 n 
hand. Among these precious tributes to the In- 
carnation, is the Madonnas of the Duke of Alba, a 
round picture, most delicately painted. As in 
so many others, this group is in the midst of a 
lovely landscape. The Mother has been reading, 
the volume still in her hand, when the little Saint 
John, in his impulsive w r ay, kneels before the In- 
fant slipping from His Mother's lap and pre- 
sents to Him a cross ! Only his own slender reed 
cross; but the action brings a look of prophetic 
sadness to the Mother's face. It is one of the 
very few Madonnas painted by Raphael which 
would not be called joyous ! In almost every 
other, this divine Little One brings to His Mother 
that fullness of joy, that happiness known only 



Raphael's madonnas. 93 

to those who possess Him; and over this happi- 
ness seldom falls even a shadow of the coming 
sorrow. 

Another, is the "Madonna of the Diadem," or 
"of the Veil," or, as some call it, "Silence." 
The Child is sleeping in a charming spot, not 
far from picturesque ruins, in all the beauty of 
dewy infantine slumber, one arm over His head. 
At His feet kneels the beautiful Virgin Mother, 
one arm around the Saint John kneeling beside 
her, his plump little hands clasped in the rap- 
ture which lights up his whole face as she raises 
the thin veil thrown over the divine Slumberer. 
What child could ever see this picture without 
wishing to kneel with Saint John and adore ! 

Two pictures, similar but still unlike, with a 
different key-note of sentiment, are deserved 
favorites ; and yet, very seldom do they find 
right interpreters : Madonna della Sedia, or the 
Madonna of the Chair; and Madonna della 
Tenda, or the Madonna of the Curtain. Both are 
seated, both are painted in warm flesh tints and 
with rich draperies, both hold the Child in the 
arms, and in both Saint John adores. In the 
Madonna della Tenda, Saint John seems to have 
spoken, and the Infant turns His head as if to 
listen to him, and the face of the Virgin shows 
that she hears also. In the Madonna della Sedia, 
there is an intensity of happiness, a concentra- 
tion of thought, which is seen in no other 



94 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

perhaps, until the last one ever painted by 
Eaphael. The soft meditative eyes of Mother 
and Child look out from the picture, as if there 
were an eternity in their happiness. The Ever- 
lasting, without beginning, of days, reposes on 
that throne before which must ever pale the 
thrones of ivory, or gold, the lap of His Virgin 
Mother, and is encircled by her arms ; while in 
a mist of negative tints, as contrasted with the 
positive ones we have in the two principal figures, 
stands Saint John in a veritable trance of adoia- 
tion. This is one of the treasures of the Tribune 
of the Pitti Gallery, Florence. 

As a contrast to these passively beautiful 
groups, is one of such richness in conception, 
of such delicacy in detail, so profound in medi- 
tation, so intense in action, so harmonious in 
the very flow of its lines, that it wins the heart 
at one look. The Virgin Mother is seated on a 
grassy bank in the shadow of a court yard. 
There is an opening of the arches giving a 
glimpse of sky, and Saint Joseph is approach- 
ing. On her knee Mary bears her Son, who is 
leaning eagerly forward towards the little Saint 
John in loving adoration at His feet. Beside 
the Blessed Virgin sits Saint Elizabeth, who is 
holding up the arm of the Divine Child that He 
may bless her son, His precursor, and His pro- 
phet ; and all this while Mary 3 not beholding his 
face, but enraptured by the sweetness of her 



Raphael's madonnas. 95 

Babe, sits with blissfully joined hands adoring 
Him whom her soul loves. It is called the 
"Madonna of Divine Love !" 

Now we have the Madonna da Foligno, painted 
for the Church of Ara Coeli, beside the Capitol. 
Enthroned on the clouds of Heaven, an arch of 
Cherubim and Seraphim above her, sits this 
Lady and Mother, her finger slipped lightly 
under the sash, by which she seems to hold the 
Child, almost ready to spring from her arms to 
those who are addressing Him from below. One 
of these is the venerable donor of the picture, 
presented to the Court of the heavenly Infant by 
Saint Jerome, his lion at his side. Opposite 
stands Saint John as the precursor, in his hand 
the reed cross of the Agnus Dei, pointing to 
Him who is to come, and beside Saint John 
kneels the Seraph of Assisi, pleading for sinners 
and for the world. Between these groups stands 
the "Cherub with the tablet," as he is called, 
gazing upward. In the far distance is a city 
which is spanned by the rainbow of peace ; for 
this picture was an ex voto, acknowledging a 
deliverance from some tempest. 

What a different group is that of the Madonna 
Del Pesce or fish, but how perfect in conception, 
how worshipful in all its details ! Our Lady is 
on a throne. We see the sky, a mountain sum- 
mit, just beyond the sweep of the heavy window 
drapery. One foot of the Child touches her 



96 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

lap, but she holds Him up lightly on both hands. 
Beside them stands Saint Jerome in his charac- 
ter of Doctor, reading from a heavy tome, the 
Scripture he has translated, the lion of Bethle- 
hem and of the desert beside him. He has been 
reading 'to his Infant Lord, by whose crib in 
Bethlehem he had made his famous translation 
at the order of Pope Damasus, as if asking the 
approbation of the Child on his labors. But as 
he reads, a boy approaches ; the young Tobias 
led by the Angel Eaphael. The boy, kneeling 
with the timid reverence of youth, presents a 
fish to our Lord, and the Archangel supports 
his charge with all the tender concern of an 
Angel Guardian. Meanwhile, the Infant, not 
to slight the great Doctor, Saint Jerome, keeps 
one hand on the page he was reading when 
interrupted, as if to mark the place ; while the 
the other is extended, with a majestic benignity, 
a supreme grace, towards the Archangel and 
Tobias. In all this there is, absolutely, nothing 
left to desire. 

The Madonna of the Duke of Alba had left 
much untold ; and now the call comes from the 
monks of Santa Maria dello Spasimo at Palermo, 
Sicily. The very name of the convent suggested 
that scene where the spasm of an unutterable 
anguish seizes the heart of the Mother of Sor- 
rows, as she sees her Divine Son falling under 
His cross. The long arms, so beautiful in their 



liAPHAEL's MADONNAS. 97 

gesture of supplication, tbe hands attenuated by 
one night of agonized watching but beautiful in 
their attenuation, the whole figure giving its cry 
of anguish as she tries in vain to assist Him, 
tell how the heart of this Mother had contracted 
in one spasm of mortal agony. We have Simon 
of Cyrene, we have the guards on foot, we have 
the mounted soldiers and the centurion in fair 
armor, and the caparisoned steeds hold them* 
selves proudly ; and yet all this show of world's 
pomp and bnef authority cannot dwarf the Di- 
vine majesty of Him who has been trodden upon 
as " a worm and no man," and now, prone upon 
the earth which He had come to redeem with all 
its millions on millions of human souls. The 
eyes of Mary meet the eyes of her Son, and they 
understand each other as they did in the dear 
days of Bethlehem and Nazareth, when they 
whispered sweetly to each other. There is the 
sorrow of the God-man, but there is the beauty 
of the God -man also; and on the tips of those 
slender fingers, clutching, as He falls, the rock 
of the roadside, or still holding His cross, the 
master has set the seal of a divine beauty even 
in suffering. The story of this picture is one to 
be remembered. The ship on which it was to 
go to Palermo was wrecked; crew, cargo, all 
lost. But one day Genoese sailors saw a box 
floating on the waves, picked it up, and w r hen 
opened, Lo Spasimo, the Madonna of Sorrows, 



98 CHKISTMAS-TIDE, 

transfixed all hearts. This waif of the sea Genoa 
claimed, stoutly, against all the entreaties of the 
Monks of Palermo, until the picture was re- 
stored to them by the express command of the 
Sovereign Pontiff. 

But the Monks of San Sisto at Placentia must 
have a banner, and from Raphael. A banner to 
float under that clear sky, in that atmosphere 
next to that of heaven. The imagination of the 
artist kindled, glowed. His whole soul melted 
into a flame of devotion. There was a grand 
summing up of all belief, of all tradition ; Urn- 
brian, Roman ; a summing up, too, of all per- 
sonal devotion, the life-long attraction, the never 
outgrown but ever increasing tenderness of per- 
sonal love to the Mother and the Son, the Incar- 
nation and the Redemption. No studies were 
made, no model posed. With the swiftness of 
light the red chalk struck the outline of the 
woman of the Apocalypse ; but without moon or 
stars, bearing only as the insignia of her match- 
less nobility, her ineffable purity, the Son born 
of a Virgin in her arms, on her bosom ; the feet 
not so much as resting on the clouds over which 
she moves through the infinitude of space. 

This atmosphere, what is it? Myriads of 
angels make the serene distances from which 
she has glided in her virginal serenity, and we 
see them faintly delineated until they melt into 
the immediate glory that surrounds this pres- 



Raphael's madonnas. 99 

ence of hitherto unconceived majesty. From 
the head floats off, with the breezy swelling of a 
sail, the veil of the Virgin. The hair is parted 
and drawn smoothly from the forehead. The 
eyes look out upon the world, upon the universe 
itself, with all the clearness of knowledge, all 
the modesty of virginity. One arm, so assured 
in its motherhood, upholds the Child as upon 
a throne ; the other hand, under His arm presses 
Him to her bosom, and His head is brooded 
under her cheek. Resting thus, this superb 
Being, uncreated and yet born, the mystery 
of eternal ages kindling w 7 ithin the shadows 
of His Infant brows, looks out on the worlds 
He has created, on the souls he has redeemed ; 
the self-sustained centre of inconceivable space. 
On one side kneels Saint Sixtus, the embodiment 
of Pontifical venerableness, of Pontifical inter- 
cession. On the other, Saint Barbara, as be- 
nignant in her exaltation as when the tower 
beside her opened its three windows for the con- 
version of her father. She listens to the orapro 
nobis of her clients, and turns upon them a look 
of compassion. Below, as if resting on Heaven's 
own parapet, lean two beautiful angels, gazing 
in rapture on the Presence above, their rainbow 
tinted wings sending into a mystical distance 
whatever is beyond them, while the whole comes 
before one as if the dark green curtains of some 
upper room in Eome had opened, to disclose to 



100 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

the eyes of the Faithful a vision of celestial, 
everlasting beatitude ! 

This was the last Madonna painted by Ra- 
phael, as the Transfiguration was his last com- 
position. There was no setting sun to his day 
of life ; rather, like the morning star, his bright- 
ness passed into the dawn of an eternal day. 

No attempt has been made here to enumerate 
the Madonnas painted by Raphael. The impulse 
was to give such as might be considered types of 
whole families of Madonnas painted by the 
artists of all Christian ages. There was no at- 
tempt with any of them at originality; merely 
an endeavor to attain to some ideal existing, not 
only in the soul of the artist, but in the mind of 
the community, the people, the society in which 
they lived. Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Ger- 
many, demanded Madonnas. One sentiment 
pervaded artists and patrons, and the picture of 
the Aldobiandini Madonna, with its pink, sanc- 
tifies a flower beloved by the peasant, the artisan 
and the prince. In vain shall we analyze their 
beauties in order to reproduce them. They be- 
long to an ideal generation as well as to an 
ideal painter; to a generation in which dogma 
or belief, practice or piety, were invested by 
that charm so rare in our day; which belongs 
to Christian aesthetics, and to be acquired not 
so much by specified studies, as by a sentiment 
which pervades all studies, directs the choice of 



Raphael's madonnas. 101 

acquisition, and, when it has found "the pearl 
of great price," knows how to " sell all it pos- 
sesses " and secure it. 

The home in which Raphael was born, en- 
dowed with the heritage of Christian ideality, 
may well excite the emulation of the fathers and 
mothers of to-day. It was not the occupation 
of an artist, the mere handling of the imple- 
ments of art, which -made that home so attrac- 
tive ; so powerful, too, as an incentive to per- 
fection. It was rather the sentiments of piety, 
of veneration w T bich guided its avocations, refined 
its manners, elevated its tastes ; above all, it 
was the faithful cherishing of the traditions of 
piety w 7 hich had come down with the ages, and 
which made each generation a participator in 
the heroism, the sanctity of all which had gone 
before, even to the Apostolic day and genera- 
tion. It is only in such a society that such 
works as the Madonnas of Raphael can be 
produced, or even appreciated. We must come, 
as they came, loving worshippers to the Crib of 
the Babe of Bethlehem. We must kneel there 
with Mary and Joseph, and Saint John Baptist 
and Elizabeth, if we would enter into our 
possession, as Christians, of that poetry in art 
which is an exponent of the highest faith as 
well as of the highest culture. 

Madonna ! Sweetest word in the sweetest lan- 
guage spoken by mortal tongue. Madonna! 



102 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 

Word powerful to destroy all heresies as to 
exalt imaginations. Madonna ! Come with 
Thy Divine Son in Thine arms, and breathe 
over this land, so barren in its civilization, so un- 
attractive in its enlightenment. Come ! Breathe 
over us until the time of the flowers shall 
come, and the voice of tradition be heard in 
our homes ; until the young men and the maid- 
ens shall take Thee as their Mother and 
Patroness, and every child shall be a Saint 
John, to adore the Divine Infant on thy knees, 
Virgin Mother of God ! 



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